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BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



Robert Burns was born about two miles to the south of Ayr, in the neighbour* 
hood of Alloway Kirk and the Bridge of Doon, on the 25th January, 1759. The 
cottage, a clay one, had been constructed by his father, and a week after the poet's 
birth it gave way in a violent wind, and mother and child were carried at mid- 
night to the shelter of a neighbour's dwelling. 

When Burns became famous he wore, more however for ornament than use — 
like the second jacket of a hussar— a certain vague Jacobitism. Both in his verses 
and his letters he makes allusion to the constancy with which his ancestors followed 
the banner of the Stuarts, and to the misfortunes which their loyalty brought upon 
them. The family w!:as a Kincardineshire one — in wliich county, indeed, it can be 
traced pretty far back by inscriptions in churchyards, documents appertaining to 
leases and the like — and the poet's grandfather and uncles were out, it is said, in 
the Rebellion of 171 5. When the title and estates of the Earl Marischal were 
forfeited on account of the uprising, Burns's grandfather seems to have been brought 
into trouble. He lost his farm, and his son came southward in search of 
employment. The poet's father, who spelt his name Burnes, and who was 
suspected of having a share in the Rebellion of 1745, came into the neighbourhood 
of Edinburgli, where he obtained employment as a gardener. Afterwards he went 
into Ayrshire, where, becoming overseer to Mr. Ferguson of Doonholm and 
leasing a few acres of land, he erected a house and brought home his wife, Agnes 
Blown, in December 1757. Robert was the firstborn. Brain, hypochondria, and 
general superiority he inherited from his father ; from his mother he drew his lyrical 
gift, his wit, his mirth. She had a fine complexion, bright dark eyes, cheerful 
spirits, and a memory stored with song and ballad— a love for which. Robert drew 
in with her milk. 

In 1766, William Burnes removed to the farm of Mount Oliphant in the parish 
of Ayr ; but the soil was sour and bitter, and on the death of Mr. Ferguson, to 
whom Mount Oliphant belonged, the management of the estate fell into the hands 
of a factor, of whom all the world has heard. Disputes arose between the official 
and tlie tenant. Harsh letters were read by the fireside at Mount Oliphant, and 
were remembered years afterwards, bitterly enough, by at least one of the listeners. 
Burness left his farm after an occupancy of six years, and removed to Lochlea, a 
larger and better one in the parish of Tarbolton. Here, however, an unfortunate 
difference arose between tenant and landlord as to the conditions of lease. Arbi- 
ters were chosen, and a decision was given in favour of the proprietor. This 



vi BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 

misfortune seems to have broken the spirit of Burnes. He died of consumption 
on the 13th Februaiy, 1784, aged 63, weary enough of his long strife with poverty 
artd ungenial soils, but not before he had learned to take pride in the abilities of 
his eldest son, and to tremble for his passions. 

Burnes was an admirable specimen of the Scottish yeoman, or small farmer, of 
the last century ; for peasant he never was, nor did he come of a race of peasants. 
In his whole mental build and training he was superior to the people by whom 
he was surrounded. He had forefathers he could look back to; he had family 
traditions which he kept sacred. Hard-headed, industrious, religious, somewhat 
austere, he ruled his household with a despotism, which affection and respect on 
the part of the ruled made light and easy. To the blood of the Barneses a love 
of knowledge was native as valour, in the old times, was native to the blood of the 
Douglasses. The poet's grandfather built a school at Clockenhill in Kincardine, 
the first known in that part of the country. Burnes was of the same strain, 
and he resolved that his sons should have every educational advaritage his means 
could allow. To secure this he was willing to rise early and drudge late. Accord- 
ingly, Robert, when six years old, was sent to a school at Alloway Mill ; and on 
the removal of the teacher a few months afterwards to another post, Burnes, in 
conjunction with a few of his neighbours, engaged Mr. John Murdoch, boarding 
him in their houses by turns, and paying him a small sum of money quarterly. 
Mr, Murdoch entered upon his duties, and had Robert and Gilbert for pupils. 
Under him they acquired reading, spelling, and writing ; they were drilled in 
English grammar, taught to turn verse into prose, to substitute synonymous ex- 
pressions for poetical words, and to supply ellipses. He also attempted to teach 
them a little Church music, but with no great success. He seems to have taken 
to the boys, and to have been pleased with their industry and intelligence. 
Gilbert was his favourite on account of his gay spirits and frolicksome look. 
Robert was by comparison taciturn — distinctly stupid in the matter of psalmody 
— and his countenance was swarthy, serious, and grave. 

Our information respecting the family circle at Mount Oliphant, more interesting 
now than that of any other contemporary Scottish family circle, is derived entirely 
from the reminiscences of the tutor, and of Gilbert and Robert themselves. And 
however we may value every trivial fact and hint, and attempt to make it a 
window of insight, these days, as they passed on, seemed dull and matter-of-fact 
enough to all concerned. Mr. Murdoch considered his pupils creditably diligent, 
but nowise remarkable. To Gilbert, these early years were made interesting when 
looked back upon in the light of his brother's glory. Of that period, Robert wrote 
a good deal at various times to various correspondents, when the world had become 
curious ; but as in the case of all such writings, he unconsciously mixes the past 
with the present— looks back on his ninth year with the eyes of his thirtieth. He 
lelli Us that he was by no means a favourite with anybody ; that though it cost the 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE, vii 



master some thrashings, **I made an excellent English scholar ; and by the time I 
was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles," 
Also we are told that in the family resided a certain old woman — Betty Davidson 
by name, as research has discovered — who had the largest collection in the country 
of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, &c.; and that to the recital of 
these Robert gave attentive ear, unconsciously laying up material for future 
Tarns- O-Shanter, and Addresses to the Deil. As for books, he had procured the 
Life of Hannibal^ and the History of Sir William Wallace ; the first of a classical 
turn, lent by Mr. Murdoch, the second, purely traditionary, the property of a 
neighbouring blacksmith, constituting probably his entire secular library ; and in a 
letter to Mrs. Dunlop, he describes how the perusal of the latter moved him, — 

" In those boyish days, I remember in particular being struck with that part of 
Wallace's story where these lines occur : 

Syne to the Leglen wood when it was late, 
To make a silent and a safe retreat. 

I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day my line of life allowed, and walked 
half a dozen miles to pay my respects to the Leglen wood, with as much devout 
enthusiasm as ever pilgrim did to Loretto, and explored every den and dell where 
I could suppose my heroic countryman to have lodged." 

When Mr. Murdoch left Mount Oliphant, the education of the family fell on the 
father, who, when the boys came in from labour on the edge of the wintry twilight, 
lit his candle and taught them arithmetic. He also when engaged in work with his 
sons, directed the conversation to improving subjects. He got books for them 
ft'om a book society in Ayr ; among which are named Derham's Physico and Astro- 
Theology ^ and Ray's Wisdom of God. Stackhouse's History of the Bible was in 
Uie house, and from it Robert contrived to extract a considerable knowledge of 
ancient history. Mr. Murdoch sometimes visited the family and brought books 
with him. On one occasion he read Titus Androniciis aloud at Mount Oliphant, 
and Robert's pure taste rose in a passionate revolt against its coarse cruelties and 
unspiritual horrors. When about fourteen years of age, he and his brother Gilbert 
were sent " week about during a summer quarter '' to a parish school two or three 
miles distant from the farm to improve themselves in penmanship. Next year, 
about midsummer, Robert spent three weeks with his tutor, Murdoch, who had 
established himself in Ayr. The first week was given to a careful revision of the 
English Grammar, the remaining fortnight was devoted to French, and on his 
return he brought with him the Adventures of Tclemachus and a French Dictionary, 
and with these he used to work alone during his evenings. He also turned his 
attention to Latin, but does not seem to have made much progress therein, altliough 
in after-life he could introduce a sentence or so of the ancient tongue to adorn iiis 
correspondence. By the time the family had left Mount Oliphant, he had lorn 
the heart out of a good many books, among which were several tlicological work;?. 



viii BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 

some of a philosophical nature, a few novels, the Spectator^ Shakespere^ Papers Homer, 
and, above all, the Works of Allan Ramsay. These, with the Bible, a collection of 
English songs, and a. collection of letters, were almost the only books he was 
acquainted with when he broke out in literature. No great library certainly, but he 
had a quick, eye and ear, and all Ayrshire was an open page to him, filled with 
strange matter, which he only needed to read off into passionate love-song 
or blistering satire. 

In his sixteenth year the family removed~from Mount Oliphant to Lochlea. Here 
Robert and Gilbert were employed regularly on the farm, and received from their 
father 7/. per annum of wages. Up till now,. Burns liad led a solitary self-contained 
life with no companionship save his own thoughts and what books he could procure, 
with no acquaintances save his father, his brother, and Mr. Murdoch. This seclusion 
was now about to cease. In his seventeenth year, "to give his manners a finish" 
he went to a country dancing school, — an important step in life for any young fellow^ 
a specially important step for a youth of his_years, heart, brain, and passion. In 
the Tarbolton dancing school the outer world with its fascinations burst upon him. 
It was like attaining majority and freedom. It was like coming up to London from 
the provinces. Here he first felt the sweets of society, and could assure himself of 
the truthfulness of his innate sense of superiority. At the dancing school, he en- 
countered other young rustics laudably ambitious of *' brushing up their manners," 
and, what was of more consequence, he encountered their partners also. This was 
his first season, and he was as gay as a young man of fortune who had entered on 
his first London one. His days were spent in liard work, but the evenings were his 
own, and these he seems to have spent almost entirely in sweethearting on his own 
account, or on that of others. His brother tells us that he was almost constantly 
in love. His inamoratas were the freckled beauties who milked cows and hoed 
potatoes ; but his passionate imagination attired them with the most wonderful 
graces. He was Antony, and he found a Cleopatra — for whom the world were 
well lost — in every harvest field. For some years onward he did not read 
much ; indeed, his fruitful reading, with the exception of Fergusson's Poems, of 
which hereafter, was accomplished by the time he was seventeen; his leisure 
being occupied in making love to rustic maids, where his big black eyes could 
come into play. Perhaps 'on the whole, looking to poetic outcome, he could not 
have employed himself to better purpose. 

He was now rapidly getting perilous cargo on board. The Tarbolton dancing 
school introduced him to unlimited sweethearting, and his nineteenth summer, 
which he spent in the study of mensuration, at the school at Kirkoswald, made 
him acquainted with the interior of taverns, and with ** scenes of swaggering riot." 
He also made the acquaintance- of certain smugglers who frequented that bare and 
deeply-coved coast, and seems to have been attracted by their lawless ways and 
speeches. It is characteristic, that in the midst of his studies, he was upset by the 



BtOGkAPniCAL PREFACE. ix 

charms of a country girl wht) lived next door to the school. While taking the sun's 
altitude, he observed her walking in the adjoining garden, and Love put Trigo- 
nometry to flight. During his stay at Kirkoswald, he had read Shenstone and 
Thomson^ and on his return home he maintained a literary correspondence with his 
schoolfellows, and pleased his vanity with the thought that he could turn a sentence 
with greater skill and neatness than any one of them. 

For some time it had been Burns's habit to take a small portion of land from his 
father for the purpose of raising flax ; and, as he had now some idea of settling in 
life, it struck him that if he could add to his farmer-craft the accomplishment of flax- 
dressing, it might not be unprofitable. He accordiiigly went to live with a relation of 
his mother's in Irvine— Peacock by name — who followed that business, and with him 
for some time he worked with diligence and success. But while welcoming the New 
Year morning after a bacchanalian fashion, the premises took fire, and his schemes 
were, laid waste. Just at this time, too — to complete his discomfiture — he had been 
jilted by a sweetheart, "^who had pledged her soul to meet him in the field of 
matrimony." In almost all the foul weather which Burns encountered, a woman 
may be discovered flitting through it like a stormy petrel. His residence at Irvine 
was a loss, in a worldly point of view, but there he ripened rapidly, both spiritually 
and poetically. At Irvine, as at Kirkoswald, he made the acquaintance of persons 
engaged in contraband traffic, and he tells us that a chief friend of his "spoke of 
illicit love with the levity of a sailor — whicli, hitherto, I had regarded witli horror. 
There his friendship did me a mischief." About this time, too, John Rankine — to 
whom he afterwards addressed several of his epistles — introduced him to St. Mary's 
Lodge, in Tarbolton, and he became an enthusiastic Freemason. Of his mental 
states and intellectual progress, we are furnished with numerous hints. He was 
member of a debating club at Tarbolton, and the questioh for Hallowe'en still 
exists in his handwriting. It is as follows : — " Suppose a young mati, bred a farmer, 
but without any fortune, has it in his power to mairry either of two women, the one 
a girl of large fortune, but neither handsome in person nor agreeable in conversation, 
but who can manage the household affairs of a farm well enough j the other of them 
a girl every way agreeable in person, conversation, and behaviour, but without any 
fortune; which of them shall he choose?" Not a bad subject for a collection of 
clever rustics to sharpen their wits upon ! We may surmise that Burns found himself 
as much superior in debate to his companions at. the Bachelors' Club as he Jiad 
])reviously found himself superior to his Kirkoswald correspondents in letter-writting. 
The question for the Hallowe'en discussion is interesting mainly in so far as it 
indicates what kind of discussions were being at that time conducted in his own 
brain ; and also how habitually, then and afterwards, his thinking grew out of his 
personal condition and surroundings. A question of this kind interested him more 
than whether, for instance, Cromwell deserved well of his country. Neither now 
nor afterwards did he trouble himself much about far-removed things. He cared 



l^IOGRAPinCAl PREFACE. 



for no other land than Caledonia. He did not sing of Helen's beauty, but of the 
beauty of the country girl he loved. His poems were as much the product of his 
own farm and its immediate neighbourhood, as were the clothes and shoes lie wore, 
the oats and turnips he grew. Another aspect of him may be found in the letter 
addressed to his father three days before the Irvine flax-shop went on fire. It is 
infected with a magnificent hypochondriasis. It is written as by a Bolingbroke — 
by a man who had played for a mig]|ity stake, and who, when defeated, could smile 
gloomily and turn fortune's slipperiness into parables. And all the while the dark 
philosophy and the rolling periods flowed from the pen of a country lad, whose 
lodgings are understood to have cost a shilling per week, and "whose meal was 
nearly out, but who was going to borrow till he got more." One other circumstance 
attenvling his Irvine life deserves notice — his falling in with a copy of Fa^giisson's 
Poems. For some time previously he had not written much, but Fergusson stirred 
him with emulation ; and on his removal to Mossgiel, shortly afterwards, he in a 
single winter poured forth more immortal verse — measured by mere quantity — than 
almost any poet in the same space of time, either before his day or after. 

Three months before the death of the elder Bumes, Robert and Gilbert 
rented the farm of Mossgiel in the parish of Mauchline. The farm consisted 
of 119 acres, and its rent was 90/. After the father's death the whole fatnily 
removed thither. Burns was now twenty-four years of age, and come to his full 
strength of limb, brain, and passion. As a young farmer on his own account, 
he mixed more freely than hitherto in the society of the country-side, and in a 
more independent fashion. He had the black eyes which Sir Walter saw after- 
wards in Edinblirgh and remembered to have "glowed." He had wit, which 
convulsed the Masonic Meetings, and a rough-and-ready sarcasm with which he 
flayed his foes. Besides all this, his companionship at Irvine had borne its fruits. 
He had become the father of an illegitimate child, had been rebuked for his 
transgression before the congregation, and had, in revenge, written witty and 
wicked verses on the reprimand and its occasion, to his correspondent Rankine. 
And when we note here that he came into fierce collision with at least one section 
of the clergy of his country, all the conditions have been indicated which went to 
make up Bums the man, and Burns the poet. 

Ayrshire was at this period a sort of theological bear-garden. The more im- 
portant clergymen of the district were divided into New Lights and Auld Lights ; 
they wrangled in Church Courts, they wrote and harangued against each other ; 
and, as the a<lherents of the one party or the other made up almost the entire 
population, and as in such disputes Scotchmen take an extraordinary interest, 
the county was set very prettily by the ears. The Auld Light divines were strict 
Calvinists, laying great stress on the doctrine of Justification by Faith, and inclined 
generally to exercise sjiiritual authority after a somewhat despotic fashion. The 
New Light divines were less dogmatic, less inclined to religious gloom and acerbity, 



BiOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xi 

and they possessed, on the whole, more literature and knowledge of the worM. 
Burns became deeply interested in the theological warfare, And at once ranged him- 
self on the liberal side. From his being a poet this was to have been expected, but 
various circumstances concurred in making his partisanship more than usuajly 
decided. The elder Bumes was, in his ways of thinking, a New Light, and his 
religious notions he impressed carefully on his children — his son consequently, in 
taking up the ground he did, was acting in accordance with received ideas and with 
early training. Besides, Burns's most important friends at this period— Mr. Gavin 
Hamilton, from whoin he held his farm on a sub-lease, and Mr. Aitken, to 
whom the Cotte)^s Saturday Night was dedicated— were in the thick of the contest 
on the New Light side. Mr. Hamilton was engaged in personal dispute with the 
Rev. Mr. Auld — the clergyman who rebuked Burns— and Mr. Aitken had the 
management of the case of Dr. MacGill, who was cited before the local Church 
Courts on a charge of heterodoxy, Hamilton and Aitken held a certain position 
in the county — they were full of talent, they were hospitable, they were witty in 
themselves, and could appreciate wit in others. They were of higher social rank 
than Burns's associates had hitherto been, they had formed a warm friendship for 
him, and it was not unnatural that he should become their ally, and serve their 
cause with what weapons he had. Besides, wit has ever been a foe to the Puritan. 
Cavaliers fight with song and jest, as well as with sword and spear, and sometimes 
more effectively. Hudibras and Worcester are flung into opposite scales, and 
make the balance even. From training and temperament, Burns was an enemy of 
the Auld Light section ; conscious of his powers, and burning to distinguish himself, 
he searched for an opportunity as anxiously as ever did Irishman for a head at 
Donnybrook, and when he found it, he struck, without too curiously inquiring into 
the rights and wrongs of the matter. At Masonic Meetings, at the tables of his 
friends, at fairs, at gatherings round church-doors on Sundays, he argued, talked, 
joked, flung out sarcasms— to be gathered up, repeated and re-repeated— and mad- 
dened in every way the wild-boar of orthodoxy by the javelins of epigram. The 
satirical opportunity at length came, and Burns was not slow to take advantage of 
it. Two Auld Light divines, the R5v. John Russel and the Rev. Alex. Moodie, 
quarrelled about their respective parochial boundaries, and the question came 
before the Presbytery for settlement. In the court— when Burns was present— the 
reverend gentlemen indulged in coarse personal altercation, and the Tzva Herds 
was the result. Copies of this satire were handed about, and for the first time 
Burns tasted how sweet a thing was applause. The circle of his acquaintances 
extended itself, and he could now call several clergymen of the moderate party his 
friends. The Tiua Herds was followed by the tremendous satire of Holy Willie's 
Prayer, and by the Holy Fair--\\\<t last equally witty, equally familiar in its allu- 
sions to sacred things, but distinguished by short poetic touches, by descriptions of 
character and manners, unknown in Scottish poetry since the days of Dunbar. 



xU BIOGRAPIIIC^iL PREFACE. 

These pieces caused great stir ; friends admired and applauded ; foes hated and 
reviled. His brother Gilbert spoke words of caution which, had Burns hepeded, it 
"would have been better for his fame. But to check such thunder in mid- volley was, 
perhaps, more than could have been expected of poetic flesh and blood. 

Burns interested himself deeply ill the theological disputes of his district, but he 
did not employ himself entirely in writing squibs against that section of the clergy 
which he disliked. He had already composed Maine's Elegy and the Epistle to Davie 
— the first working in an element of humour ennobled by moral reflectionj a peculiar 
manner in which he lived to produce finer specimens ; the second almost purely 
didactic, and which he hardly ever surpassed — and as he was now in the fiill flush 
of inspiration, every other day produced its poem. He did not go far a-field for 
his subjects ; he fourid sufficient inspuration in his daily life and the most familiar 
objects. The schoolmaster of Tarbolton had established a shop for groceries, and 
having a liking for the study of medicine, he took upon himself the airs of a physi- 
cian, and advertised that "advice would be given in common disorders, at the 
shop, gratis." On one occasion, at the Tarbolton Mason-lodge, when Burns was 
present, the' schoolmaster made a somewhat ostentatious display of his medical 
acquirements. To a man so easily moved as Bums, this hint was sufficient. On 
his way home from the Lodge the terrible grotesquerie of Death and Dr. Hornbook 
floated through his mind, and on the following afternoon the verses wefe repeated 
to Gilbert. Not long after, in a Sunday afternoon walk, he recited to Gilbert the 
Cotter's Saturday Night, who described himself as electrified by the recital — as 
indeed he might well be. To Gilbert also the Address to the Dei I was repeated 
while the two brothers were engaged with their carts in bringing home coals for 
family use. At this time, too, his poetic Epistles to Lapraik and others were com- 
posed — pieces which for verve and hurry and gush of versification seem to have 
been written at a sitting, yet for fcurious felicities of expression might have been 
imder the file for years. It was Bums's habit, Mr. Chambers tells us, to keep his 
MSS. in the drawer of a little deal table in the garret at Mossgiel; and his 
youngest sister was wont, when he went out to afternoon labour, to slip up quietly 
and hunt for the freshly-written verses. Indeed, during the winter of 1785-86 
Burns wrote almost all the poems which were afterwards published in the Kilmar- 
nock edition. 

But at this time he had other matters on hand than the writing of verses. 
The farm at Mossgiel was turning out badly; the soil was sour and wet, and, 
from mistakes in the matter of seed, the crops were failures. His prospects 
were made still darker by his relation with Jean Armour. He had made the 
acquaintance of this young woman at a penny wedding in Mauchline, shortly after 
he went to reside at Mossgiel, and the acquaintanceship, on his part at least, soon 
ripened into passion. In the spring of 1786, when baited with farming difficulties, 
he learned that Jean was about to become a mother, and the intelligence came on 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xiii^ 

him like a thunder-clap. Urged by a very proper feeling, he resolved to make the 
unhappy young woman all the reparation in his power, and accordingly he placed 
ill her hands a written acknowledgment of marriage— a document sufficient by the 
law of Scotland to legalize their connexion, though after a somewhat irregular 
fashion. When Mr. Armour heard of Jean's intimacy with Bums and its miserable 
result, he was moved with indignation, and he finally persuaded her to deliver into 
Ills hands Burns's written paper, and this document he destroyed, although, for 
anything he knew, he destroyed along with it his daughter's good fame. Burns's 
feelings, at this crisis may be imagined. Pride, love, anger, despair, strove for 
mastery in his breast. Weary of his country, almost of his existence, and seeing 
ruin staring him in the face at Mossgiel, he resolved to seek better fortune and 
solace for a lacerated heart, in exile. He accordingly arranged with Dr. Douglas 
to act as book-keeper on his estate in Jamaica. In order to earn the passage 
money, he was advised to publish the wonderful verses then lying in the drawer of 
the deal table at Mossgiel. This advice jumped pleasantly enough with his own 
wishes, and without loss of time he issued his subscription papers and began to 
prepare for the press. He knew that his poems possessed merit; he felt that 
applause would sweeten his "goodnight." It -is curious to think of Burns's 
wretched state — ^in a spiritualas well as a pecuniary sense — at this time, and of the 
centenary the other year which girdled the planet as with a blaze of festal fire 
and a roll of triumphal drums ! Curious to think that the volume which Scotland 
regards as the most precious in her possession should have been published to raise 
nine pounds to carry its author into exile ! 

All the world has heard of Highland Mary — in life a maid-servant in the family 
of Mr. Hamilton, after death to be- remembered with Dante's Beatrice and 
Petrarch's Laura. How Burns and Maiy became acquainted we have little means 
of knowing — indeed the whole relationship is somewhat obscure-^but Bums loved 
her as he loved no other woman, and her memory is preserved in the finest 
expression of his love and grief. Strangely enough, it seems to have been in the 
fierce rupture between, himself and Jean that this white flower of love sprang up, 
sudden in its growth, brief in its passion and beauty. It was arranged that the 
lovers should become man and wife, and that Mary should return to her friends to 
prepare for her wedding. Before her departure there was a farewell scene. " On 
tlie second Sunday of May," Burns writes to Mr. Thomson, after an historical 
fashion which has something touching in it, "in a sequestered spot on the banks 
of the Ayr the interview took place." The lovers met and plighted solemn troth. 
According to popular statement, they stood on either side of a brook, they dipped 
their hands in the water, exchanged Bibles — and parted. Mary died at Greenock, 
and was buried in a dingy churchyard hemmed by narrow streets — beclanged now 
by innumerable hammers, and within a stone's throw of passing steamers. Informa- 
tion of her death was brought to Bums at Mossgiel ; he went to the window to 



Jciv BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



read the letter, and the family noticed that on a sudden his face changed. He went 
out without speaking ; they respected his grief and were silent. On the whole 
matter Burns remained singularly reticent ; but years after, from a sudden geysir of 
impassioned song, we learn that through all that time she had never been forgotten. 

Jean was approaching her confinement, and having heard that Mr. Armour was 
about fo resort to legal measures to force him to maintain his expected progeny — 
an impossibility in his present circumstances — Burns left Maudiline and went to 
reside in the neighbourhood of Kilmarnock, where, in gloomy mood enough, he 
corrected his proof sheets. The volume appeared about the end of July, and, 
thanks to the exertions of his friends, the impression was almost immediately 
exhausted. Its success was decided. All Ayrshire rang with its praise. His 
friends were of course anxious that he should remain in Scotland ; and as they 
possessed some influence, he lingered in Ayrshire, loth to depart, hoping that 
something would turn up, but quite undecided as to the complexion and nature of 
the desired something. Wronged as he considered himself to have been by the 
Armour family, he was still conscious of a lingering affection for Jean. The poems 
having made a conquest of Ayrshire, began to radiate out on every side. Professor 
Dilgald Stewart, then resident at Catrine, had a copy of the poems, and Dr. 
Blair, who was on a visit. to the professor, had his attention drawn to them, and 
expressed the warmest admiration. Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop on opening the book 
had been electrified by the Cotter's Saturday Nighty as Gilbert had been before her, 
and immediately sent an express to Burns at Mossgiel with a letter of praise and 
thanks. All this was pleasant enough, but it did not materially mend the situation. 
Burns could not live on praise alone, and accordingly, so soon as he could muster 
nine guineas from the sale of his book, he took a steerage passage in a vessel which 
was expected to sail from Greenock at the end of September. During the month of 
August he seems to have employed himself in collecting subscriptions, and taking 
farewell of his friends. Burns was an enthusiastic mason, and we can imagine 
that his last meeting with the Tarbolton Lodge would be a thing to remember. It 
was remembered, we learn from Mr. Chambers, by a surviving brother, John Lees. 
John said, "that Burns came in a pair of buckskins, out of which he would always 
pull the otJier shilling for the other bowl, till it was five in the morning. An 
awfu' night that." Care left outside the door, we can fancy how the wit would 
(lash, and the big black eyes glow, on such an occasion ! 

The first edition of his poems being nearly exhausted, his friends encouraged him 
to produce a second forthwith ; but on application, it was found that the Kilmar- 
nock printer declined to undertake the risk, unless the price of the paper was 
advanced beforehand. This outlay Burns was at this time unable to afford. On 
hearing of the circumstance, his friend Mr. Ballantyne offered to advance the 
money, but urged him to proceed to Edinburgh and publish the second edition 
there. This advice commended itself to Burns's ambition, but for a while he 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. icv 

remained irresolute. Jean, meanwhile, had been confined of twins, and from one 
of his letters we learn that the "feelings of a father" kept him lingering in 
Ayrshire. News of the success of his poems came in upon him on every side. 
Dr. Lawrie, minister of Loudon, to whose family he had recently paid a visit, had 
forwarded a copy of the poems, with a sketch of the author's life, to Dr. Thomas 
Blacklock, and had received a letter from that gentleman, expressing the warmest 
admiration of the writer's genius, and urging that a second and larger edition 
should at once be proceeded with; adding, that "its intrinsic merits, and the 
exertions of the author's friends, might give the volume a moi-e universal cii-culation 
than anything of the kind which has been published in my time." This letter, so 
full of encouragement, Dr. Lawrie carried at once to Mr. Gavin Hamilton, and Mr. 
Hamilton "lost no time in placing it in Burns's hands. The poems had been 
favourably reviewed in the Edinburgh Magazhie for October, and this number of 
the periodical, so interesting to all its inmates, would, no doubt, find its way to 
Mossgiel. Burns seems to have made up his mind to proceed to Edinburgh about 
the 1 8th November, a step which was warmly approved by his brother Gilbert; 
and when his resolution was taken, he acted upon it with promptitude. 

He reached Edinburgh on the 28th November, 1 786, and took up his residence 
with John Richmond, a Mauchline acquaintance, who occupied a room in Baxter's 
Close, Lawnmarket, for which he paid three shillings a week. Burns for some time 
after his arrival seems to have had no special object ; he wandered about the city, 
looking down from the Castle on Princes Street ; haunting Holyrood Palace and 
Chapel ; standing with cloudy eyelid and hands meditatively knit beside the grave 
of Fergussou ; and from the Canongate glancing up with interest on the quaint tene- 
ment in which Allan Ramsay kept his shop, wrote his poems, and curled the wigs 
of a departed g'eneration of Scotsmen. At the time of Burns's arrival, the Old Town 
towered up from Holyrood to the Castle, picturesque, smoke-wreathed ; and when 
the darkness came, ih climbing tiers of lights and cressets were reflected in llic yet 
existing Nor' Loch ; and the grey uniform streets and squares of the New Town — 
from which the visitor to-day can look down on low wooded lands, llie Fortli, and 
Fife beyond — wei-e only in course of erection. The literary society of the time was 
brilliant but exotic, like the French lily or the English rose. For a generation and 
more the Scottish philosophers, historians, and poets had brought their epigram 
from France as they brought their claret, and their humour from England as they 
brought their parliamentary intelligence. Blair of the Grave was a Scottish Dr. 
Young ; Home of Douglas a Scottish Otway ; Mackenzie a Scottish Addison ; and 
Dr. Blair— so far as his criticism was concerrted— a sort of Scottish Dr. 'Johnson. 
The Scotch brain was genuine enough ; the faculty was native, but it poured itself 
into foreign moulds. The literary grandees wore decorations — honestly earned — 
but no one could discover amongst them the Order of the Thistle. These men, 
too, had done their work, and the burly black-eyed, humorous, passionate 



jcvi HiOGRAPIIICAL PREFACE. 

ploughman came up amongst them, the herald of a new day and a new order of 
things ; the first khig of a new literary empire, in which he was to be succeeded by 
Walter Scott, — then a lad of sixteen, engrossing deeds in his father's office, with 
the Tweed murmuring in his ears, and Melrose standing in the light of his opening 
imagination — with Hogg, Gait, Wilson, Lockhart and the rest, for his satraps and 
lieutenants. 

Burns's arrival in Edinburgh. was an historical event, far more important in itself, 
and in its issues, than either he or than any other person suspected. 

He soon got to work, however. In Ayrshire he had made the acquaintance of 
Mr. Dalrymple, of Orangefield ; that gentleman introduced him to his brother-in- 
law, the Earl of Glencaim, then resident in Edinburgh ; and his lordship introduced 
him to William Creech, the leading publisher in the city, at whose shop the wits 
were wont to congregate. Creech imdertook the publication of the new edition ; 
and, through the influence of Glencaim, it was arranged that the Caledonian Hunt 
should subscribe for a hundred copies, and that a guinea should be paid for each. 
Meantime, INIr. Mackenzie, in the Z^w;z^<?r, of date 9th December, wrote a glowing 
criticism on the poems, which smoothed a way for them into the politer circles. 
The new edition, dedicated to the Caledonian Hunt, appeared on the 2ist April, 
1787, containing a list of subscribers' names extending to more than thirty-eight 
pages. The Hunt, as we have seen, took one hundred copies, and several gentle- 
men and noblemen subscribed liberally — one taking twenty copies, a second forty 
copies, a third forty-two copies. The Scots Colleges in France and Spain are also 
set down as subscribers among individual names. This was splendid success, and 
Burns felt it. He was regarded as a phenomenon ; was asked hither and thither, 
frequently from kindness and pure admiration — often, however, to be merely talked 
witli and stared at :— this he felt, too, and his vengeful spleen, well kept under on the 
whole, corroded his heart like a fierce acid. During the winter preceding the 
publication of the second edition, he was feted and caressed. He was patronised 
by the Duchess of Gordon. Lord Glencaim was his friend, so also was Henry 
Erskine. He was frequently at Lord Monboddo's, where he admired the daugh- 
ter's beauty more than the father's philosophy; he breakfasted with Dr. Blair ; 
he walked in the mornings to the Braid Hills with Professor Dugald Stewart ; and 
he frequently escaped from these lofty circles to the Masonic Lodge, or to the 
supper-tables of convivial lawyers, where he felt no restraint, where he could be 
wounded by no patronage, and where he flashed and coruscated, and became the 
soul of the revel. Fashionable and lettered saloons were astonished /by Burns's 
talk; but the interior of taverns — and in Edinburgh tavern life was all but 
universal at the time — saw the brighter and more constant blaze. This sudden 
change of fortune — so different from his old life in the Irvine flax heckling-shop, or 
working the sourMossgiel lands, or the post of a book-keeper in Jamaica, which he 
looked forward to, and so naiTowly escaped — was not without its giddy and exciting 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. x>m 



pleasures, and for pleasure of every kind Bums had the keenest relish. Now and 
again, too, in the earlief days of his Edinburgh life, when success wore its newest 
gloss, and applause had a novel sweetness, a spirt of exhilaration escaped him, not 
the less real that it was veiled in a little scornful exaggeration. In writing to Mr. 
Hamilton, he says : " For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as 
eminent as Thomas k Kempis, or John Bunyan ; and you may expect hence- 
forth to see my birthday inserted among the wonderful events in the Poor Robin 
and Aberdeen Almanacks, along with Black Monday and the battle of Both well 
Bridge." In any case, if he did feel flattered by the attention paid him by 
society, he had time to cool and strike a balance in his friend Richmond's garret in 
the Lawnmarket — where he slept, Mr. Lockhart informs us, during the whole 
of that glittering and exciting winter. 

Hitherto, the world had seen but little of Burns personally. It had heard his 
voice as of one singing behind the scenes, and been moved to admiration ; and 
when he presented himself in the full blaze of the footlights, he became the 
cynosure of every eye, and the point on which converged every critical opera-glass. 
Edinburgh and Burns confronted each other. Edinburgh *• took stock " of Burns, 
Bums "took stock" of Edinburgh, and it is interesting to note the mutual 
impressions. From all that can be gathered from Dr. Blair, Professors Dugald 
Stewart, Walker, and others. Bums acquitted himself in his new circumstances 
admirably. He never lost head, he never let a word of exultation escape him, his 
deportment was everywhere respectful yet self-possessed ; he talked well and freely 
— for he knew he was expected to talk — but he did not engross conversation. His 
*• deferential" address won his way to female favour : and the only two breaches 
of decomm which are recorded of him in society, may be palliated by his probable 
ignorance of his host's feelings and vahities on the first occasion, and on the second, 
by the peculiar provocation he received. Asked in Dr. Blair's house, and in Dr. 
Blair's presence, from which of the city preachers he had derived the greatest 
gratification, it would have been fulsome had Burns said, turning to the Doctor, 
*' I consider you, Sir, the greatest pulpit orator I have ever heard." The question 
was a most improper one in the circumstances ; and if the company were thrown 
into a state of foolish embarrassment, and the host's feelings wounded by Bums 
giving the palm to his colleague — then the company were simply toadies of the 
sincerer sort, and the host less skilled in the world's ways than Burns, •and pos- 
sessed of less natural good-breeding. In the second instance when, in a sentence more 
remarkable for force than grace, he extinguished a clergyman who abused Gray's 
^'^^^Sy* but who could not quote a line of it correctly, he merely gave way to a swift 
and not ungenerous instinct— for which he was, no doubt, sorry the next moment. 
I le cannot be defended altogether, although even "here one can hardly help rendering 
liim a sneaking approval. Bad language at a breakfast-table, and addressed to a 
cler£jyman, is improper — but, on the other hand, no clergyman has a right lo be a 



xviii BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



bore at a breakfast-table. Indeed, your critical and blundering bore, whether 
clergyman or no— all the more sedulously, perhaps, if he be a clergyman— should 
keep out of the way of a Bums. Evil is certain to befall him if he do not It is 
pretty evident, however, from the records left, that Dr. Blair, Dugald Stewart, 
and. others, did not really know ^ums- did not, in fact, take much pains to know 
him. They never met him on frank, cordial, and brotherly terms. They looked 
on him curiously, as one looks on a strange insect, through a microscope. From 
their learned heights they regarded him as on the plain beneath. They 'v\-ere 
ever ready with advice, and counselled him to stand armed at points where no 
danger could possibly appear. Of all the good things in the world, advice is 
practically the least usefuL If a man is fool enough to need advice, the chances are 
that he will be fool enough to resent it when given, or neglect it when the critical 
moment arrives. The Edinburgh literati did not quite well know what to make of 
Burns. He was a new thing under the sun, and they could not fall back on pre- 
cedent. They patronised him kindly, heartily, for the most part— but still it was 
patronage. And it has come about that, in the lapse of seventy years, the relations 
of the parties have been quite reversed — as in dissolving views, the image of Burns 
has come out in bolder relief and brighter colours, while his patrons have lost 
outline, have dYvandled, and become shadowy. Dr. Blair and Lord Monboddo 
will be remembered mainly by the circumstance that the one invited Burns to 
his evening entertainments, and the other to his breakfasts. Burns has kept 
thai whole literary generation from oblivion, and from oblivion he will keep 
it yet awhile. 

On the other hand, it is quite evident, that although Bums, during that brilliant 
winter, masked himself skilfully, he bore an inward smart. He felt that he was 
regarded as meteoric, a wonder ; that he did not fit into existing orders of things, 
and that in Edinburgh he had no familiar and received status. Consequently, he 
was never sure of his ground ; and while, for the most part, careful to offend no 
one, he was passionately jealous of condescension and suspicious of personal affront. 
The men amongst whom he mingled had their positions in the world, and in these 
positions they had the ease of use and wont. Their couches were made soft by 
the down of customariness. They had all the social proprieties and traditions at 
their backs. From the past, they flowered out socially and professionally. With 
Burns everything was different. He had in Edinburgh, so to speak, neither father 
nor mother. He had neither predecessor nor antecedent. He could roll in no 
groove made smooth by custom ; and hence it is, when in bitter mood, we find 
him making such extravagant claims for genius against dull rich men, or dull well- 
born men, or semi-dull men, who had been successful in the professions. He knew 
that genius was his sole claim to the notice of the brilliant personages he met 
night after night ; that but for it he was a small Ayrshire farmer, whom not one of 
those people would invite to their tables, or bid "Good day " to, if they met him 



BIOGRAPiriCAL PREFACE. xix 

on a country road. It was admirable in Scott to waive, as he continually did, all 
claim to special regard on account of his genius, but it was easy for Scott to do 
this. Scott would have dined well every day of his life, he would have lived with 
cultivated and refined people, and would have enjoyed a fair share of social dis- 
tinction, although he had never written Mannion or Ivajthoe. But Burns's sole title 
to notice was genius— iake that from him, he was instantly denuded of his singing 
robes, and left in the hodden grey of the farmer, with a splash of mud on his 
top-boots. In his commonplace book — a very pooi of Marah — which he kept at 
Edinburgh, there is an entry which brings all this out in a clear light. 

"There are few of the sore evils under the sun give me more uneasiness and 
chagrin than the comparison how a man of genius, nay, of avowed worth, is 
received everywhere, with the reception which a mere ordinary character, decorated 
■with the trappings and futile distinctions of fortune, meets. Imagine' a man of 
abilities, his heart glowing with honest pride, conscious that men are born equal, 
still giving honour to 7vJioin honour is due ; he meets at a great man's table a Squire 
Something, or a Sir Somebody; he knows the noble landlord, at heart, gives the 
bard, or whatever he is, a share of his good wishes, beyond, perhaps, any one at 
table ; yet how will it mortify him to see a fellow, whose abilities would scarcely 
have made an eightpenny tailor, and whose heart is not worth three farthings, 
meet with attention and notice, that are withheld from the son of genius and 
poverty ! 

" The noble Glencairn has wounded me to the soul here, because I dearly esteem, 
respect, and love him. He showed so much attention, engrossing attention, one 
day, to the only blockhead at table (the whole company consisted of his lordship, 
dunder-pate, and myself), that I was within half a point of throwing down my gage 
of contemptuous defiance ; but he shook my hand, and looked so benevolently good 
at parting. God bless him ! though I should never see him more, I shall love him 
until my dying day ! I am pleased to think I am so capable of the throes of 
gratitude, as I am miserably deficient in some other virtues. 

" With Dr. Blair I am more at my ease. I never respect him with humble 
veneration ; but when he kindly interests hirriself in my welfare, or, still more, 
when he descends from his pinnacle, and meets me on equal ground in conversation, 
my heart overflows with what is called liking. When he neglects me for the mere 
carcase of greatness, or when his eye measures the difference of our points of 
elevation, 1 say to myself, with scarcely any emotion, what do I care for him, or 
his pomp either?" 

A man like Burns, living at a period when literature had not to any extent 
become a profession, could not find his place amongst the recognised forces^of the 
world — was doomed for ever to be an outsider — and therein lay the tragedy of his 
life. He was continually making comparisons between his own evil fortune and 
the good fortune of others. Proud, suspicious, iswift to take offence, when his 

bz 



XX BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE, 

a77iour-propre was wounded, he was apt to salve it in the company of revellers 
whom he could meet on equal terms, and in whose society he could take out his 
revenge in sarcasm. As regards mere brain, he does not seem to have entertained 
any remarkable respect for the Edinburgh men of letters. He considered he had 
met as much intellectual capacity — unpolished and in the rough — in Torbolton 
debating societies, Mauchline masonic meetings, and at the tables of the writers of 
Kilmarnock and Ayr* He admitted, however, that his residence in Edinburgh 
had brought him in contact with something new — a refined and accomplished 
woman. The admission is important, and meeting it one fancies for a moment that 
one has caught some sort of explanation of his future life. What might have been 
the result had Burns secured a career in which his fancy and intellect could have 
exercised themselves, and a wife, who to affection added refinement and accomplish- 
ment, we may surmise, but cannot tell. A career he never secured ; and on his 
return to Ayrshire, in passionate blindness, he forged chains for himself which he 
could not break— which it would have been criminal in him to have attempted 
to break. 

From Burns's correspondence while in Edinburgh we can see in what way he 
regarded his own position and prospects. He admitted that applause was pleasant ; 
he knew that, as a poet, he possessed some merit, but he constantly expressed his 
conviction that much of his success arose from the novelty of a poet appearing in 
his rank of life ; and he congratulates himself on the circumstance that — let literary 
reputation wax or wane — he had *'an independence at the plough-tail" to fall 
back upon. He foresaw from the beginning that Edinburgh could be nothing 
more than a striking episode in his life, and that he was fated to return to the rural 
shades. Early in the year, he had some conversation with Mr. Patrick Miller, 
relative to his becoming a tenant on that gentleman's estate at Dalswinton, and 
had promised to run down to Dumfriesshire and look at the lands some time in 
the following May. That Mr. Miller was anxious to serve Burns, seems to have 
been generally known in Edinburgh ; for in Dr. Blair's letter, dated on 4th May, 
1787, in answer to a note written by Burns on the previous day, intimating that he 
was about to leave town, the Doctor supposes that he is "going down to Dalswinton 
to look at some of Mr. Miller's farms." Before his return. Burns did intend to 
look at these farms, but at the moment farming was not the principal business in 
hand. He, in company with his young friend Ainslie, was on the wing for the south 
of Scotland — a district which was .calling him with a hundred voices of tradition 
and balfad. On the day before starting, he sent Mr. Johnson, editor of the Scofs 
Musical Miisnim^ a cordial letter, for he had entered with enthusiasm into that 
gentleman's work, and already written for it one or two songs — preliminary drops 
of the plenteous summer-shower which has kept so many secret places of the heart 
fresh and green. 

The companions left Edinburgh on horseback on the 5th May. They visited 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xxi 

Dunse, Coldstream, Kelso, Jedburgh, Melrose, Dryburgh, and Yarrow — Burns 
scattering jokes and epigrams all the way. About the middle of the month Ainslie 
returned to Edinburgh, and Bums then crossed into England, saw Hexham and 
Newcastle, and returned home by Carlisle and Dumfries. From Dumfries he 
went to Dalsvvinton, looked over the estate, but did not seem much enamoured of 
its condition. He, however, arranged to meet Mr. Miller in August. He then 
came by Sanquhar to Mauchline, and dropped in upon his family unannounced. 
His meeting with these reticent hearts must be left to imagination. He went out 
from them obscure ; he returned to them illustrious, with a nimbus around his 
head. At home he renewed acquaintanceship with old friends, and found that 
Mr. Armour, who had treated him coldly in the day of his poverty and obscurity, 
was now inclined to regard him with a favourable eye — a circumstance which seems 
to have kindled Burns into unreasonable rage. **If anything," he writes to his 
correspondent Smith, **had been wanting to disgust me completely with the Armour 
family, their mean, servile compliance would have done it." The proud spirit 
which rankled in Edinburgh seems to have rankled no less bitterly in Ayrshire. 
A few days after he wrote to Mr. William Nicol, master of the High School, 
Edinburgh— then and afterwards one of his chiefest friends : — "I never, my friends, 
thought mankind very capable of anything generous ; but the. stateliness of the 
patricians in Edinburgh, and the civility of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps 
forrnerly eyed me askance) since I returned home, have nearly put me out of con- 
ceit altogether with my species. I have bought a pocket Milton, which I carry 
perpetually about with me, in order to -study the sentiments, the dauntless 
magnanimity, the intrepid, unyielding independence, the desperate daring, and 
noble defiance of hardship, in that great personage, Satan." At this precise 
period, it is somewhat hard to understand whence came the bitterness which wells 
up in almost every letter which Burns wrote. He was famous, he was even com- 
paratively rich, but he had an eye which, constitutionally, regarded the seamy side 
of things. Probably, in no possible combination of fortunate circumstances could 
Burns have been a contented and happy man. He had Ulysses' "hungry heart," 
which could be satisfied with no shore, however green and pleasant, which must 
needs sail beyond the sunset. While residing at Mauchline, he accidentally met 
Jean, and affectionate intimacy was renewed, as if no anger or bitterness had ever 
estranged tliem. 

Towards the end of June he went alone to the West Highlands, without any 
apparent motive, if not drawn by the memory of Mary Campbell Of his move- 
ments in this trip we have, no very precise information. At Inverary, where he 
could find accommodation neither in Castle nor Tnn, he left an epigram which has 
become famous. In a letter to Mr. J. Smith— a fair specimen of his more familiar 
epistolary stylja»-dated 30th June, we have some slight information respecting his 
doings, and a description of certain " high Jinks" in the north, in which he was 



xxii BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 

an actor. Although the letter is dated as above, it does not state at what place it 
was written — Burns, perhaps, wishing to keep his secret. 

*' On our return, at a highland gentleman's hospitable mansion, we fell in with a 
merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three in the morning. Oiu" 
dancing was none of the French or English insipid formal movements; the ladies 
sung Scotch songs like angels, at intervals; then we flew at 'Bab at the Bowsler,' 
* Tullochgorum,' * Loch Erroch Side,' &c. like midges sporting in the mottie sun, 
or crows prognosticating a storm on a hairst day. When the dear lassies left us, 
we ranged round the bowl, to the good-fellow hour of six; except a few minutes 
that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day 'peering over the 
towering top of Ben Lomond. We all kneeled ; our worthy landlord's son held the 
bowl, each man a full glass in his hand ; and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming 
nonsense, like Thomas-a-Rhymer's prophecies, I suppose. After a small refresh- 
ment of the gifts of Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on Loch Lomond, 
and reached Dumbarton in the evening. We dined at another good fellow's house, 
and consequently pushed the bottle; when we went out to mount our horses, we 
found ourselves * No vera fou, but gay lie yet.' My two friends, and I, rode 
soberly down the Loch side, till by came a Highlandman at the gallop, on a 
tolerably good horse, but which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather. 
We scorned to be out-galloped by a Highlandman, so off we started, whip and spur. 
My companions, though seemingly gaily mounted, fell sadly astern ; but my old 
mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosinante family, strained past the Highlandman, 
in spite of all his efforts with the hair-halter. Just as I was passing him, Donald 
wheeled his horse, as if to cross before me, to mar my progress, when down came 
his horse, and threw his breekless rider in a dipt hedge ; and down came Jenny 
Geddes over all, and my hardship between her and the Highlandman's horse. Jenny 
Geddes trode over me with such cautious reverence, that matters were not so bad 
as might have been expected ; so I came off with a few cuts and bruises and a 
thorough resolution to be a pattern of sobriety for the future. 

*'I have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business- of life. I am, 
just as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. However, 
I shall somewhere have a farm soon." 

W'hatever motive may have induced Burns to visit the W^est Highlands, he 
returned to Mossgiel somewhat shaken by the escapade related above. During 
the ensuing month he wrote his autobiographical sketch to Dr. Moore, and on the 
7th August he returned to Edinburgh to settle business matters with his publisher, 
and to arrange other excursions through districts of the country in which he had a 
poetic interest. 

Near the dose of August, Burns and Nicol started on a northern tour They 
went by P'alkirk and Stirling, visited the field of Bannockburn, and on their return 
to Stirling, Burns, with a diamond which he had recently purchased — the most 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xxiii 



unfortunate of all his investments, as it turned out — scribbled certain perilous 
verses on a window-pane of the inn. They then struck into Perthshire, admired 
the Falls of Moness, where Burns wrote The Birks of Abe^fddy ; visited Blair, 
the seat of the Duke of Athole, where they were hospitably entertained, and 
where Burns met his future patron, Mr. Graham, of Fintry, and narrowly missed 
meeting Mr. Dundas — a piece of ill-fortune which his biographers agree in 
lamenting. The travellers then proceeded to Inverness, went to Culloden, spent 
some time at the ruined cathedral at Elgin ; crossed the Spey, and visited the 
Duke of Gordon— which visit was cut short by an ebullition of wounded pride on 
the part of Nicol. From Castle Gordon they came by Banff to Aberdeen ; Burns 
then crossed into Kincardineshire— of which county his father was a native — and 
spent some time in hunting up his relations there. He then went to Montrose, 
where he met his cousin, Mr. James Burness, and returned to Edinburgh by Perth 
and Dundee. 

In the beginning of October, according to Mr. Chambers, — for there seems to 
be a little obscurity as to date, — -Burns, accompanied Tjy Dr. Adair, set out on a 
visit to Sir William Murray, of Ochtertyre, and passing through Stirling, he broke 
the pane in the inn on which he had inscribed the treasonable lines. Unhappily, 
however, he could not by this means put them out of existence, as they had been 
widely copied and circulated, and were alive in many memories. At Ochtertyre he 
spent one or two pleasant days ; and while in the neighbourhood he took the 
opportunity of visiting Mrs. Bruce of Clackmannan, who was in possession of the 
helmet and sword of the Bruce, and with the latter she conferred on the poet and 
his guide the honour of knighthood, remarking as she did so, that she had a better 
right to give the title than some people. He returned to Edinburgh by Kinross 
and Queensferry, and while at Dunfermline some circumstances took place, trivial 
in themselves, but important as exhibiting what rapid changes took place in the 
weather of the poet's mind. 

"At Dunfermline," says Dr. Adair, "we visited the ruined abbey and the abbey 
church, now consecrated to Presbyterian worship. Here I mounted the cutty stool, 
or stool of repentance, assuming the character of a penitent for fornication, while 
Burns from the pulpit addressed to me a ridiculous reproof and exhortation, 
parodied from that which had been delivered to himself in Ayrshire, where 
he had, as he assured me, once been one of seven who mounted the seat of 
shame together. 

" In the churchyard two broad flagstones marked the grave of Robert Bruce, for 
whose memory Burns had more than common veneration. He knelt and kissed 
the stone with sacred fervour, and heartily execrated the worse than Gothic neglect 
of the first of Scottish heroes." 

Burns was now resident in St. James's Square, in the house of William Cruick- 
blank, who was, like Nicol, connected with tlie Edinburgh High School, Hi? 



xxiv BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE, 

chief business was the arrangement of publishing matters with Creech, and he was 
anxious to come to some definite conclusion with Mr. Miller regarding a farm at 
Dalswinton. On his return from Ochtertyre he wrote that gentleman in practical 
terms enough : " I want to be a farmer in a small farm, about a plough -gang, in a 
pleasant country, under the auspices of a good landlord. I have no foolish notion 
of being a tenant on easier terms than another. To find a farm where one can live 
at all is not easy. I only mean living soberly, like an old style farmer, and joining 
personal industry. The banks of the Nith are as sweet poetic ground as any I ever 
saw ; and besides, sir, 'tis but justice to the feelings of my own heart, and the 
opinion of my best friends, to say that I would wish to call you landlord sooner 
than any landed gentleman I know. These are my views and wishes ; and in 
whatever way you think best to lay out your farms, I shall be happy to rent one 
of them. I shall certainly be able to ride to Dalswinton about the middle of 
next week." Burns, however, did not go to Dumfriesshire so early as he expected. 
There was dilatorincss on Creech's part regarding settlements as to the poems ; 
there was perhaps dilatorincss on Burns's part regarding the farm ; at all events, 
autumn had glided into winter, and he remained at Edinburgh without having come 
to a conclusion with either. The winter, however, was destined to open one of 
the strangest chapters in his strange story. At this time he made the acquaintance 
of Mrs. M 'Lehose, the Clarinda of so many impassioned letters. This lady, who 
was possessed of no common beauty and intelligence, had been deserted by her 
husband, and was bringing up her children in somewhat narrow circumstances. 
They met at tea in the house of a common friend, and were pleased with each 
other's conv.ersation. The second night, after, Burns was to have drunk tea by 
invitation at the house of Mrs. M'Lehose, but having been upset the previous 
evening by a drunken coachman, and brought home with a knee severely bruised, 
he was obliged to forego that pleasure. He wrote the lady, giving the details of 
the accident, and expressing regret that he was unable to leave his room. Tlie 
lady, who was of a temperament" generous and impulsive, replied at once, giving 
utterance to her regret, and making Burns a formal proffer of her sympathy and 
friendship. Burns was enraptured, and. returned an answer after the following 
fashion : — 

"I stretch a point, indeed, my dearest madam, when I answer your card on the 
rack of my present agony. Your friendship, madam ! By heavens ! I was never 
proud before. * * * I swear solemnly (in all the terror of my former oath) to 
remember you in all the pride and warmth of friendship until — I cease to be ! , 

"To-morrow, and every day till I see you, you shall hear from me. 

"Farewell ! May you enjoy a better night's repose than I am likely to have." 

The correspondence, so rapturously opened, proceeded quite as rapturously. It 
Was arranged that in future Burns should sign himself Sylvander, and the lady 
(^lari)ida. Each day gave birth to its epistle. Poems were interchanged. Sighs 



BlOGRAPmCAL PREP ACE. xxv 

were wafted from St. James's Square to the Potterow. Clarinda was a "gloriously 
amiable fine woman," and Sylvan'der was her "devoted slave." Clarinda chid 
Sylvander tenderly for the warmth of his expressions. Sylvander was thrown 
into despair by the rebuke, but protested that he was not to blame. Who could 
behold her superior charms, her fine intelligence, and not love ? who could love and 
be silent? Clarinda had strong Calvinistic leanings, and Sylvander, who could not 
pardon these things in Ayrshire clergymen, and was accustomed to call them by 
quite other names, was " delighted by her honest enthusiasm for religion.,'* Clarinda 
was to be passing on a certain day through the square in which Sylvander lived, 
and promised to favour him with a nod, should she be so fortunate as to see him 
at his window ; and wrote sorrowing, the day after, that she had been unable to 
discover his window. Sylvander was inconsolable. Not able to discover his 
window ! He could almost throw himself over it for very vexation. His peace is 
spoiled for the day. He is sure the soul is capable of disease, for his has convulsed 
itself into an inflammatory fever, and so on. During this period of letter-writing, 
Burns and Mrs. M'Lehose had met several times in her own house, and on these 
occasions he had opportunities of making her aware of his dismal prospects. The 
results of his renewed intercourse with Jean on his return to Ayrshire were now 
becoming apparent ; this was communicated to her along, with other matters, and 
Mrs. M'Lehose was all forgiveness — tempered with rebuke, and a desire for a more 
Calvinistic way of thinking on his part on religious subjects. That the affection 
of Burns for the lady was rooted in anything deeper than fancy, and a natural 
delight in intelligence and a pleasing manner, may be doubted. His Clarinda 
letters are artificial, and one suspects the rhetorician in the swelling sentences and 
the exaggerated sentiment. With regard to Mrs. M'Lehose there can be no 
mistake. Her letters are far superior to Burns' s, being simple, natural, and with a 
pathetic cadence in some portions which has not yet lost the power to affect. She 
loved Burns, and hoped, if he would but wait till existing ties were broken, to 
be united to him. But Burns could not wait, the correspondence drooped, and 
a year saw all his passion 

" Die away. 
And fade into the light of common day ;" 

the common day of Jean Armour, Ellisland, and the Excise. 

When Burns at this- period, confined to his room by an angry limb, in the middle 
of his Clarinda correspondence, and tortured with suspicions of Creech's insolvency 
— of which some ugly rumours had reached him — was made aware that Jean was 
about to become again a mother, and that her father had thrust her from his house 
in anger, he was perhaps more purely wretched than at any other period of his life. 
In his own breast there was passionate tumult and remorse. Look where he 
would, no blue spot was to be discovered in the entire sky of his prospects. He 



xxvi lilOGRAPIIlCAL PREFACE. 

had felt the sweetness of applause : he was now to experience the bitterness of the 
after-taste. He was a "lion " whose season had passed. His great friends seemed 
unwilling or unable to procure him a post. He had been torn from his old modes of 
life, and in the new order of things which surrounded him he could find nothing 
permanent, nothing that would cohere. Time was passing ; his life was purpose- 
less ; he was doing nothing, effecting nothing ; he was flapping in the wind like an 
unbraced sail. At this juncture he resolved to bring matters to a' conclusion, 
after one fashion or another. In his letters, the old scheme of emigration to the 
West Indies turns up bitterly for a moment. Then he bethought himself of a post 
in the Excise, which had always been a dream of his, and the possibility of his 
obtaining which had been discussed by his Ayrshire friends before he became 
famous. If such a position could be secured it would be at least something, some- 
thing in itself, something to fall back upon should his farming schemes prove 
abortive. He accordingly wrote the Earl of Glencairn, soliciting his patronage, 
but the application appears to have been followed by no result. Mr. Graham, of 
Fintry, whose acquaintance Burns had made at Blair, the seat of the Duke of 
Athole, having heard of his wish, through the- kind offices of Mr. Alexander Wood, 
the surgeon who attended him, immediately placed his name on the list of expec- 
tant officers. Having arranged his Excise business so far, he left Edinburgh to 
have another look at Mr. Miller's farms, and to come to an agreement, if possible. 
He took a friend with him on whose sagacity and business skill he could confide; 
and after a deliberate inspection of the lands, he was better satisfied than he had 
been on a former occasion, and at once made an offer to Mr. Miller for the farm at 
Ellisland, which was accepted. On his return to Edinburgh he announced his 
resolution to his friend Miss Chalmers : 

"Yesternight I completed a bargain with Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, for the farm 
of Ellisland, on the banks of the Nith, between five and six miles above Dumfries. 
I begin at Whitsunday to build a house, drive lime, &c., and Heaven be my help ! 
for it will take a strong effort to bring my mind into the routine of business. I 
have discharged all the army of my former pursuits, fancies, and pleasures — a 
motley host ! and have literally and strictly retained only the ideas of a few friends, 
which I have incorporated into a life-guard." 

Burns's business at this time in Edinburgh related to his settlement with Creech, 
which, after many delays, was about to take place. In all, he appears to have 
received between 400/. and 500/., and out of this sum he advanced 180/. to his 
brother Gilbert, who \yas struggling manfully at Mossgiel. On the 24th March, 
with much business on hand, he left Edinburgh for Ayrshire, where he married 
Jean Armour— snapping thereby the chief link which bound him to the metropolis. 
This union, putting moral considerations out of the question altogether, was the 
most prudent course open to him, and it repaired the fabric of self-respect which 
had been, to some extent at least, broken down. For a time we hear nothing of 



SIOCRAPHICAL PREFACE, xxvii 



the "wandering stabs of remorse," and his letter? breathe a. quite unusual content- 
edness. He had made some little self-sacrifice, and he tasted the happiness which 
always arises from the consciousness of self-sacrifice. Besides, he had loved the 
girl, perhaps loved her all through, although the constant light of affection hadi to 
himself as well as to others, been obscured by the glare of fiercer and more tran- 
sitory fires ; and if so — the sacrifice not so great as he supposed it to be— he was 
plainly a gainer both ways. Burns was placed at this time in difficult circum- 
stances, and he simply made the best of them. He could build only with the materials 
M ithin reach. There was nothing left but to begin life again as a farmer, and it 
behoved him to wear russet on heart as well as on limb. In the heyday of his 
Edinburgh success he foresaw the probability of his return to the rural shades, and 
to these shades he had now returned — but he returned with reputation, experience, 
an unreproving conscience, some little money in hand, and with solider prospects 
of happiness than had ever yet fallen to his lot. Happiness he did taste for a few 
months— and then out of the future came the long shadows of disaster, fated not to 
pass away, but to gather deeper and darker over a grave which was dug too early 
— and yet to6 late. 

When Burns entered into possession of Ellisland, at Whitsunday, 1788, he left 
his wife at Mauchline till the new dwelling-house should be erected. In the mean- 
time he was sufficiently busy ; he had to superintend masons and carpenters, as 
well as look after more immediate farm matters. Besides, in order to qualify him- 
self for holding his Excise Commission, he had to give attendance at Ayr for six 
weeks on the duties of his new profession. These occupations, together with 
occasional visits to his wife and fa.nily, kept him fully occupied. Hope had sprung 
up in his bosom like a Jonah's gourd, and while the greenness lasted he was happy 
enough. During his solitary life at Ellisland, he wrote two or three of his finest 
songs, each of them in praise of Jean, and each giving evidence that his heart was 
at rest. During this time, too, a somewhat extensive correspondence was kept up, 
and activity and hopefulness — only occasionally dashed by accesses of his constitu- 
tional melancholy — radiate through it all. As was natural, his letters relate, for 
the most part, to his marriage and his new prospects. As respects his marriage, he 
takes abundant care to make known that, acting as he had done, he had acted 
prudently ; that he had secured an admirable~wife, and that in his new relationship 
he was entirely satisfied. If any doubt should exist as to Burns's satisfaction, it 
can arise only from his somewhat too frequent protestation of it. He takes care to 
inform his correspondents that he has actually married Jean, that he would have 
been a scoundrel had he declined to marry her, and that she possessed the sweetest 
temper and the handsomest figure in the country. The truth is, that, in the matter 
of matrimony, he could not very well help himself. He was aware that the match 
was far from a brilliant one, and as he really loved his wife, he had to argue down 
that feeling in his own heart : he was aware that his correspondents did not con- 



xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 

sider it brilliant, and he had also to argue down that feeling in theirs. Meanwhile, 
the house at Ellisland was getting finished. In the first week of December he 
brought home his wife, and in the pride of his heart he threw off a saucy little song, 

"I hae a wife o' my ain, 

which quivers through every syllable of it with a homely and assured delight that 
laughs at all mischance. Mrs. Burns brought her children and a whole establish- 
ment of servants. The house was small, its accommodation was limited, and Burns 
sat at meals with his domestics, and on Sunday evenings, after the good old Scottish 
fashion, he duly catechised them. He has himself left on record that this was the 
happiest portion of his life. He had friends, with whom he maintained an intimate 
correspondence ; he had a wife whp loved him ; his passionate and wayward heart 
was at rest in its own happiness ; he could see the grain yellowing in his own 
fields ; he had the Excise Commission in his pocket on which he could fall back if 
anything went wrong ; and on the red scaur above the river, he could stride about, 
giving audience to incommunicable thought, while the Nith was hoarse with flood, 
and the moon Was wading through clouds overhead. When should he have been 
happy, if not now ? 

Burns's farming operations during the second year of his -occupancy of Ellisland 
were not successful, and in the more unrestrained letters of the period we find him 
complaining of his hard fate in being obliged to make one guinea do the work of 
five. As the expense of his family was now rapidly increasing, he requested to be 
allowed to enter at once on his duties as officer of Excise. That in his np w mode 
of life he would encounter unpleasantnesses he knew, and was prepared for them ; 
but he expected that Mrs. Burns would be able to manage the farm for the most 
part — in any case his salary as Exciseman would be a welcome addition to his 
means. He was appointed on application, he entered zealously on his duties, and 
as his district extended over ten parishes, he was forced to ride about two hundred 
miles per week. This work, taken in conjunction with labour at Ellisland, which, 
constantly getting into arrear, demanded fierce exertion at intervals, was too much 
for even his iron frame. He had attacks of illness, and his constitutional hypo- 
chondria ruled him with a darker sceptre than ever. It appears evident from his 
letters that he meant to make his fight at Ellisland,^ and that he considered the 
Excise as a second line of defence on which he could fall back in the event of defeat. 
At Ellisland he was defeated, and on his second line of defence he fell back gjrimly 
enough. An Excise officer is not a popular character in country districts where 
smugglers abound ; and whatever degree of odium might attach to his .new 
profession Burns was certain to feel more keenly than most. One can see that in 
his new relation his haughty spirit was ill at ease ; that he suspected a sort of 
meanness in himself ; and that the thought that he had in any way stooped or con- 
descended was gall and wormwood. His bitterness on this matter escapes in 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xxlx 

various and characteristic ways. At one time he treats the matter with imperial 
disdain, declaring that he does not intend " to seek honour from his profession ; '* 
at another time in a set of impromptu verses he mocks at his occupation and him- 
self, illuminating the whole business with a flame of spleenful mirth. But the step 
he had taken was unquestionably a prudent one, and if it miscarried, it miscarried 
from foreign causes. From every account which survives, he was an excellent and 
zealous officer, and into his Work he carried eyes which were at once sharp and 
kindly. It was not in his nature to be harsh or tyrannical. A word revealed 
secrets to him, a glance let him into the bearings of a case ; and while he saw that 
the interests of Government did not materially suffer, his good nature and kind- 
heartedness were always at hand to make matters as pleasant as possible. One or 
two of these Excise anecdotes are amongst the pleasantest remembrances we have 
of Burns, His professional prospects were on the whole far from despicable. On 
his farm he was losing money, health, and hope ; but in the Excise he looked 
forward to advancement — an Inspectorship or Supervisorship being regarded as 
within his reach. 

If Eilisland had only been profitable, Burns might have been considered a fortu- 
nate man. For his own wants and for those of his family the cottage which he had 
built sufficed. The scenery around him was beautiful. He was on good terms 
with the neighbouring proprietors, and his reputation attracted visitors from many 
quarters; He procured books from Edinburgh and from the circulating library 
which — with that regard for mental means and appliances which seems to have 
been a characteristic of his race — he had established in the vicinity. Every other 
day letters and newspapers were arriving at Eilisland, connecting him with distant 
places and events ; and the stranger who dropped in upon him from London or 
Edinburgh, or even from places more remote, brought talk, ideas, observations on 
this tiling and the other more or less valuable, stimulus, excitement — all tending to 
enrich intellectual life. And during this time he was no mental sluggard. He 
worked his brain as he worked his servants on the acres at Eilisland, or his horse 
as he rode on the scent of a smuggler through the Nithsdale moors. He carried 
on a multifarious correspondence, he wrote his letters carefully — only a little too 
carefully sometimes, for he is occasionally modish and over-dressed. Every other 
week he sent a packet of songs to Johnson for his Miiseiiviy which had now reached 
the third volume. He interested himself in local politics and scribbled election- 
eering ballads. One evening, when- the past — heavy with unshed tears — lay near 
his heart, he composed the strain, To Mary m Heaven ; and in the course of one 
summer day, in a perfect riot and whirlwind of ecstasy, every faculty and power in 
full blossom, he dashed off Tarii (9' Shanter — immortal, imapproachable ! If Ellis- 
land had but paid. Burns might have been happy as farmer and poet, — or as 
Exciseman, farmer and poet, — for the characters were by no means incompatible. 
.As but for his Excise salary Burns must have succumbed under fanning difficul- 



XXX BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 

ties, he was now anxious to be quit of Ellisland, and to confine himself entirely to 
his official duties ; and it so happened that Mr. Miller was willing to release him of 
the portion of the lease which was yet to run, preparatory to a final sale of that part 
of the lands. The Ellisland crops were sold, and the sale was made the occasion of 
a drunken orgie. On the ist September, Burns writes to Mr. Thomas Sloari : 

*'I sold my crop on this day se'en-night, and sold it very well. A guinea an 
acre on an average above value. But such a scene of drunkenness was hardly 
ever seen in this country. After the roup was over about thirty people engaged in 
a battte, every man for his own hand, and fought it out for three hours. Nor was 
the scene much better in the house. No fighting indeed, but folks lying drunk on 
the floor, and decanting, until both my dogs got so drunk by attending on them 
that they could not stand. You will easily guess how I enjoyed the scene,, as I was 
no farther over than you used to see me." 

In November Ellisland became the property of Mr. Morine, and Burns imme- 
diately sold his farm stock and implements — relinquishing for ever the plough-tail, at 
which he so often boasted that he had an independence — and removed with his wife 
and children to a small house in the Wee Vennel of Dumfries. On his removal 
he was appointed to an Excise division, which improved his salary. His income 
was now 70/. per annum. 

It is at Dumfries that Burns's story first becomes really tragical. He had divorced 
himself frorn country scenery and the on-goings of rural life, which, up till now, 
formed an appropriate background for our ideas of him. Instead of the knowes and 
meadows of Mossgiel and Ellisland, with their lovely sunrises and twilights, we have 
to connect him with the streets, the gossip, and the dissipation of a third-rate Scot- 
tish town. He was no longer a farmer — he was a simple gauger, hoping to obtain 
a supervisorship. Proud as was his spirit, he was dependent on great friends ; and 
he condescended, on various occasions, to write epistles in prose and verse which 
fawned on a patron's hand. Natural inspiration and picturesqueness w6re taken 
out of his life. He turned down no more daisies, ihe horned moon hung no longer 
in the window-pane of the ale-house in which he drank ; the composition of 
theatrical prologues engaged his attention rather than the composition of poems 
of rustic life. He was never rich, but in Dumfries his poverty for the first time 
wears an aspect of painful ncss. For the first time we hear of monetary difficulties, 
of obligations which he cannot conveniently meet, of debt. It was here, too, that 
certain weaknesses, which had lately grown upon him, attracted public notice. In 
Dumfries, as in Edinburgh at that time, there was a good deal of tavern-life, and 
much hard drinking at dinner and supper parties, and the like. Burns was famous. — 
he had lived in dukes' houses, he corresponded with celebrated men, he could talk 
brilliantly, he had wit for every call as other men had spare silver, he could repeat, 
his last poem or epigram— and as a consequence his society was in great request. 
It was something to have dined or supped in the company of Burns — if one was not 



l^tOGRAPIllCAL PREFACB. xxxl 

the rose, it was at least something to have been near the rose — and his host was 
proud of him, as he was proud of his haunch of venison, his claret, his sXlvex epergne. 
Burns's good things circulated with the wine ; his wit gave a new relish to the fruit, 
and kindled an unwonted splendour in the brains of his listeners. Then strangers, 
passing through Dumfries, were naturally anxious to see the poet whose reputation 
had travelled so far. They invited him to the inns in which they were living, Burns 
consented, frequently the revel was loud and late, and when he rose— after the sun 
sometimes — he paid his share of the lawing with *'a slice of his constitution." In 
his younger days he had been subjected to public rebuke by the Rev. Mr. Auld ; 
but since his marriage he seems to have been irreproachable iii the matter of con- 
jugal fidelity. During, however, an unfortunate absence of his wife in Ayrshire he 
contracted a discreditable liaison^ which resulted in the birth of a daughter. Mrs. 
Burns seems neither to have reproached nor complained; she adopted the child, 
and brought it up in the same cradle with her own infant. If for his fault he had 
been subjected to domestic annoyance, he might have taken refuge in pride, and 
haughtily repelled reproaches ; but his wife's forgiveness allowed him to brood — 
and with what bitterness we can guess — over his misconduct. Doubtless the evil 
in his career at Dumfries has been exaggerated. Burns's position was full of peril 
— he was subjected to temptations which did not come in the way of ordinary men ; 
and if he drank hard, it was in an age when hard drinking was fashionable. If 
he sinned in this respect, he sinned in company with English prime ministers, 
Scotch Lords of Session, grave dignitaries of the Church in both countries, and 
with thousands of ordinary blockheads who went to their graves in the odour of 
sanctity, and whose epitaphs are a catalogue of all the virtues. Burns was a man 
set apart ; he was observed, he- was talked about ; and if he erred, it was like 
erring in the market-place. ' In any other inhabitant of Dumfries, misdemeanours 
such as Burns's would hardly have provoked remark ; what would have been 
unnoticed on the hodden grey of the farmer became a stain on the singing robe of 
the poet. That Burns should have led an unworthy life is to be deplored, but the 
truth is — and herein lies explanation, palliation perhaps — that in Dumfries he was 
somewhat a-weary of the sun. Not seldom he was desperate and at bay. He 
was neither in harmony with himself nor with the world. He had enjoyed one 
burst of brilliant success, and in the light of that success his life before and after 
looked darker than it actually was. The hope deferred of a supervisorship made 
his heart sick, lie had succeeded as a poet, but in everything else failure had 
dogged his steps ; and out of that poetical success no permanent benefit had 
resulted, or seemed now in his need likely to result. In the east were the colours 
of the dawn, but the sun would not arise. His letters at this time breathe an almost 
uniform mood of exasperation and misery, and it is hard for a miserable man to be 
a good one. He is tempted to make strange alliances, and to pay a high price for 
forgetfulness. And over Burns's head at this time was suspended one other black 



xxxii BlOGkAPIlICAL PREFACE. 

cloud, which, although it only burst in part, made the remainder of his life darker 
with its shadow. 

Chief amongst Burns's friends during the early portion of his. residence at 
Dumfries were Mr. and Mrs. Riddel. They were in good circumstances, possessing 
a small estate in the neighbourhood of the town, and Burns was frequently their 
guest. Mrs. Riddel was young and pretty, and distinguished by litera,ry taste and 
accomplishment. She wrote verses which Burns praised, and he introduced her to 
his friend Smellie, the naturalist, who was enchanted with her vivacity and talent. 
But this pleasant relationship was destined to be interrupted. On the occasion of 
a dinner-party at Woodley Park, the residence of Mr. Riddel, when wine flowed 
much too freely, Burns — in some not quite explained manner — grievously offended 
his hostess. On the following morning he apologised in prose and verse, threw 
the onus of his rudeness on Mr. Riddel's wine — which was the next thing to 
blaming Mr. Riddel himself— and in every way expressed regret for his conduct, and 
abhonence of himself. These apologies do not seem to have been accepted, and 
for a time the friends ceased to meet. Burns was hiirt and angry, and he made 
the lady he was accustomed to address in adoring verses and high-flown epistles the 
subject of cruel and unmanly lampoons. The estrangement was, of course, noised 
abroad, and people were inclined to side with the fashionable lady rather than 
with the Jacobinical exciseman. For a time at least, Dumfries regarded Burns 
with a lowering and suspicious eye, one reason of which may be found in his quarrel 
with the Riddels and its cause, and another in the political, principles which he 
professed to hold, and^ to which he gave imprudent expression. 

His immediate ancestors had perilled something in the cause of the Stuarts, and 
Burns, in his early days, was wont to wear a sentimental Jacobitism — for ornament's' 
sake, like a ring on the finger, or a sprig of heather in the bonnet. This Jacobitism 
was fed by his sentiment and his poetry. It grew out of the House of Stuart as 
flowers grow out of the walls of ruins. But while he held the past in reverence, 
and respected aristocracy as an outcome of that past, a something around which 
tradition and ballad could gather, there was always a fierce democratic impulse in 
his mind, which raged at times like the ocean tide against the Bullers of Buchan. 
This democratic fefeling, like his other feeling of Jacobitism, rested on no solid 
foundation. He had a strong feeling that genius and worth are always poor, that 
baseness and chicanery are always prosperous. He considered that the good things 
of this life were secured by the rascals more or less. The truth is, his Jacobitism 
sprang from his imagination, his Radicalism from his discontent ; the one the 
offspring of the best portion of his nature, the other the offspring of the worst. 
Radicalism was originally bom of hunger ; and Burns, while denouncing the rulers 
of his country, was simply crying out under his own proper sore. He passionately 
carried particulars into generals. He was sick, and so was the whole body politic. 
He needed reform, so, of course, did the whole world, and it was more agreeable 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



to begin with the world in the first instance. He was imprudent in the expression 
of his political opinions, and was continually doing himself injury thereby. He had 
written, as we have seen, treasonable verses on the inn window at Stirling ; and 
although on a subsequent visit he dashed out the pane, he could not by that 
means destroy the copies which were in circulation. The writing of the verses 
referred to was imprudent enough, "but the expression of his Radicalism at Dumfries 
— which was a transient mood, not a fixed principle with him — ;vvas more imprudent 
still. In the one case he was a private individual, anxious to enter the Excise ; 
in the other, he had entered the Excise, was actually a Government officer, and in 
receipt of a Government salary. Besides, too, the times were troublous : there was 
seditious feeling in the country, France had become a" volcano in active eruption, 
and European business was carried on in its portentous light. It became known 
that Burns looked with favour on the revolutionary party across the Channel, that 
he read newspapers which were opposed to the Government, and, as a consequence, 
by the well-to-do inhabitants of Dumfries he was.regarded with suspicion. This 
suspicion was, of course, wretched enough, but Burns need not have gone out of his 
way to incur it. He knew perfectly well that his Radicalism was based on no serious 
conviction, that it grew out of personal discontent) and that the discontent was the 
result of wounded pride, and the consciousness that he had not shaped Iiis life ariglit. 
Besides all this, he seems to have lost self-command ; he was constantly getting into 
scrapes from which there could be lio honourable extrication. Pie burned his fingers, 
and he did not dread the fire. To the Subscription Library in Dumfries he pre- 
sented, amongst other volumes,, a copy of De Lolnie on the British Censtilution, and 
inscribed on the back of the portrait of the author, " Mr. Burns presents ihis book 
to the Library, and begs they will take it as a creed of British liberty: — until they 
find a better. R. B. " And next morning he came to the bedside of the gentleman 
who had the volume in custody, imploring to see De Lolnie, as. he feared he had 
written something in it th^t might bring him into trouble. We hear of him at a 
private dinner-party, when the health of Pitt was proposed, giving "The health of 
George Washington— a better man," and of his being sulky that his toast was not 
received. He had already sent a present of guns to the French Convention, with 
which our prospect of war was at this time becoming imminent ; and at a later period 
we find him quarrelling with an officer on the subject of another toast, and writing 
apologies to the effect^ firstly, that when the offence was committed he was drunk ; 
and secondly, that he could not fight a duel, because he had the welfare of 
others to care for. When the Board of Excise ordered some incjuiries to be made 
regarding his political conduct,. he wrote Mr. Graham of Fintry, declaring that "To 
the British Constitution, on revolution principles, next after my God, I am most 
devoutly attached." He was in a state of chronic exasperation at himself, at the 
rich people of hi.4 acquaintance and of his irhmediate neighbourhood, and at the 
world generally ; and his exasperation was continually blazing out in sarcasm and 



xxxiv BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 

invective. Curiously enough, too, when one thinks of it, during all this bitter time, 
he was writing songs for Mr. Thomson, who had opened a correspondence with him. 
He was busy with Chloris and Phillis, while thrones were shaking, and the son of 
Saint Louis knelt on the scaffold, and Marie Antoinette during her trial was 
beating out with weary fingers a piano tune on the bench before her. Every other 
week up from Dumfries to Edinburgh came by the fly a packet of songs for the new 
publication. On one occasion came the stern war-ode, Scots wha hoc wi^ Wallace 
bled^ which Mr. Thomson thought susceptible of improvement. But Burns was 
inexorable ; he liked his ode, and as it was it should remain. It has been said, 
that by the more respectable circles in Dumfries Burns was regarded with suspicion, 
if not with positive dislike. Some evidence of this will be found in the anecdote 
related by Mr. Lockhart. "Mr. M'CuUoch," we are informed by that biographer, 
"was seldom more grieved than when, riding into Dumfries one fine summer 
evening to attend a county ball, he saw Burns walking alone on the shady side of 
the principal street of the town, while the opposite side was gay with successive 
groups of ladies and gentlemen, &11 drawn together for the festivities of the night, 
not one of whom appeared willing to recognise him. The horseman dismounted 
and joined Burns, \yho, on his proposing to him to cross the street, said, * Nay, 
nay, my young friend, that's all over now ;' and quoted, after a pause, some verses 
of Lady Grizel Baillie's pathetic ballad : 

* His bonnet stood ance fu* fair on his brow. 
His auld ane looked better than monv anc's new ; 
But now he let's wear ony gate it will hing. 
And casts hinisel' dowie upon the corn-bing. 

* Oh, were we yoting as we ance hae been, 
We sud hae been galloping down on yon green, 
And linking it ower the lily-white lea — 
And werena my heart light I wad die.' 

Burns then turned the conversation, and took his young friend home with him till 
the time for the ball arrived." 

This — with the exception of the actual close — was the darkest period in Burns's 
life. In a short time the horizon cleared a Jittle, The quarrel with Mrs, Riddel 
was healed, and in a short time books and poems were exchanged between them as 
of yore. He appears also to have had again some hope of obtaining a supervisor- 
ship— 'the mirage that haunted his closing years. Meanwhile, political feeling 
had become less bitter ; and, in 1795, he exhibited his friendliness to the institutions 
of tlie country by entering himself one of a corps of volunteers which was raised in 
Dumfries, and by composing the spirited patriotic song, Does haiighly Gaul inva- 
sion Ihrcat? This song became at once popular; and it showed the nation that 
the heart of the writer was sound at the core, that he hated anarchy and tyranny 
alike, and wished to steer a prudent middle course. Better days vvere dawning ; 
but b^ this time the hardsliips of his youth, his constant anxieties, his hoping 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xxxv 



against hope, and his continual passionate stress and tumult of soul, began to tell 
on a frame that was originally powerful. In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop,.in the begin- 
ning of the year, we' have, under his own hand, the first warning of failing strength. 
"What a transient businesses life," he writes. "Very lately I was a boy; but 
t'other day I was a young man ; and I already begin to feel the rigid fibre and 
stiffening joints of old age coming fast over my frame." In spite of breaking health, 
he attended his Excise duties, and the packets of songs were sent regularly from 
Dumfries to Edinburgh. In the songs there was no symptom of ache or pain ; in 
these his natural vigour was in no wise abated. The dew still hung, diamond-like, 
upon the thorn. Love was still lord of all. On one occasion he went to a party 
at the Globe Tavern, where he waited late, and on his way home, heavy with liquor, 
he fell asleep in the open air. The result, in his weakened state of body, was dis- 
astrous. He was attacked by rheumatic fever, his appetite began to fail, his black 
eyes lost their lustre, his voice became tremulous and hollow. His friends hoped 
that, if he could endure the cold spring months, the summer warmth would revive 
him ; but summer came, and brought no recovery. He was now laid aside from 
his official work. During his illness he was attended by Miss Jessie Lewars, a sister 
of his friend Lewars — "a fellow of uncommon "merit ; indeed, by far the cleverest 
fellow I have met in this part of the world " — and her kindness the dying 
poet repaid by the only thing he Was rich enough to give — a song of immortal 
sweetness. His letters at this time are full of his disease, his gloomy prospects, 
his straitened circumstances. In July he went to Brow, a sea-bathing village on 
the Solway, where Mrs. Riddel was then residing, in weak health, and there the 
friends— for all past bitternesses were now forgotten — had an interview. "Well, 
Madam, have you any commands for the other world ? " was Burns's greeting. 
He talked of his approaching decease calmly, like one who had grown so familiar 
with the idea that it had lost all its terror. His residence on the Solway was not 
productive of benefit : he was beyond all aid from sunshine and the saline breeze. 
On the 7th July, he wrote Mr. Cunningham, urging him to use his influence with 
the Commissioners of Excise to grant him his full salaYy. " If they do not grant it 
me," he concludes, " I must lay my account with an exit truly en pocle ; if I die 
not of disease, I must perish with hunger." On the loth July, he wrote his brother 
Gilbert ; and Mrs. Dunlop, who had become unaccountably silent, two days after. 
On this same 12th July, he addressed the following letter to his cousin :-^ 

** My dear Cousin, — When you offered me money assistance, little did I think 
1 should want it so soon. A rascal of a haberdasher, to whom I owe a con- 
siderable bill, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process 
against me, and will infallibly put my emaciated body into jail. Will you be so good 
as to accommodate me, and that by return of post, with ten pounds ? Oh, James ! 

did you know the pride of my heart, you would feel doubly for me'! Alas ! I am 

<-2 



xxxvi BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 

not used to beg. The worst of it is, my health was coming about, finely. You 
know, and my physician assured me, that melancholy and low spirits are half my 
disease — guess, then, my horror since this business began. If I had it settled, 
I would be, I think, quite well, in a manner. How shall I use the language to 
you ? — oh, do not disappoint me ! but strong necessity's curst command. 

*' Forgive me for once i!hore mentioning by return of post — save me from the 
horrors of a jail. 

*' My compliments to my friend James, and to all the rest. I do not know what 
I have written. The subject is so horrible I dare not look over it again. Farewell. 

"R. B." 

On the same day he addressed Mr. Thomson :— 

" After all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to implore you 
for five pounds. A cruel scoundrel of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an account, 
taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process, and will in- 
fallibly put me in jail. Do, for God's sake, send me that sum, and that by return 
of post. Forgive me this earnestness ; but the horrors of a jail have made me half 
distracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously ; for, upon returning health, I hereby 
promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds' worth of the neatest song- 
genius you have seen. I tried my hand on Rothemurchic this morning. The 
measure is so difficult, that it is impossible to infuse much genius into the lines ; 
they are on tlie other side. Forgive, forgive me. ! '* 

Tliis was Burns's last working day. He wrote his song in the morning. Fairest 
Maid on Devon Banks, and the two letters afterwards — to both of which answers 
were promptly returned. He soon after left the Solway and returned to Dumfries, 
where his wife was daily expected to be confined. He came home in a small spring 
cart, and when he alighted he was unable to stand. The hand of death was 
visibly upon him. His children were sent to the house of Mr. Lewars : Jessie was 
sedulous in her attentions. On the 2ist, he sank into delirium ; his children were 
brought to see him for the last time ; and with an execration on the legal agent 
who had threatened him, the troubled spirit passed. Those who came to see him 
as he lay in his last sleep were touched and affected. Mighty is the hallowing of 
death to all, — to him more than to most. As he lay stretched, his dark locks 
already streaked with unnatural grey, all unworthiness fell away from him — every 
stain of passion and debauch, every ignoble word, every ebullition of scorn and 
pride — and left pure nobleness. Farmer no longer, exciseman no longer, subject no 
jonger to criticism, to misrepresentation, to the malevolence of mean natures and 
evil tongues, he lay tliere the great poet of his country, dead too early for himself 
and for it. He had passed from the judgments of Dumfries, and made his appeal 
to Time, 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xxxvii 

Of Burns, the man and poet, what is there left to be said ? During his lifetime 
he was regarded as a phenomenon ; and now, when he has been seventy years in 
his grave, he is a phenomenon still. He came up from Ayrshire with all the sense 
and shrewdness of its peasantry, the passion of its lovers, the piety of its circles of 
family worship, the wild mirth of its kirns and halloweens. Of all the great men 
cf the North Country, his was incomparably the fullest soul. What fun he had, 
what melancholy, what pity, what anger, what passion, what homely sagacity, 
what sensitiveness ! Of everything he was brimful and overflowing. It is difficult 
to carry a full cup and not to spill it. He had his errors, but they arose out of his 
splendid and perilous richness. As a man he was full of natural goodness, but he 
was unreticent even amongst poets. We know the best and the worst, of him ; 
and he has himself frankly told us that best and that worst. He had to fight with 
adverse circumstances, he died before he had run his race, and his fame — greater 
than that of any other poet of his country — rests upon poems written swiftly, as 
men write their letters, and on songs which came to him naturally as itsf carol comes 
to the blackbird. 

Of all poets Burns was, perhaps, the most directly inspired. His poems did not 
grow — like stalactites — by the slow process of accretion ; like Adam, they had no 
childhood— they awoke complete. Bums produced all his great effects by single 
strokes. In his best things there is an impetus, a huny, which gives one the idea 
of boundless resource. To him a song was the occupation of a morning ; his 
poetic epistles drive along in a fiery sleet of words and images : his Tam O^ Shanter 
was written in a day — since Bruce fought Bannockburn, the best single day's work 
done in Scotland Burns was never' taken by surprise ; he was ready for all calls 
and emergencies. He had not only — like Addison— a thousand-pound note at 
home, but he had — to carry out the image — plenty of loose intellectual coin in his 
pocket. A richer man — with plenty of money in his purse, and able to get the 
money out of his purse when swift occasion required — Nature has seldom sent into 
the world. 

Born and bred as he was in the country, we find in Burns the finest pictures of 
rural life. We smell continually the newly-turned earth,, the hawthorn blossom, 
the breath of kine. His shepherds and shepherdesses are not those who pipe and 
make love in Arcady and on Sevres china — they actually work, receive wages, 
attend markets, hear sermons, go sweethearting, and, at times, before the con- 
gregation endure rebuke. The world he depicts is a real world, and the men and 
women are also real. Bums had to sweat in the eye of Phoebus, and about all he 
writes there is an out-of-doors feeling. Although conversant with sunrises and 
sunsets, the processes of vegetation, and all the shows and forms of nature, he 
seldom or never describes these things for their own sake ; they are always kept 
in subordination to the central human interest. Bums cared little for the natural 
picturesque in itself; the moral picturesque touched him more nearly. An 



xxxviii BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 

old soldier in tattered scarlet interested him more than an old ruin ; he pre- 
ferred a gnarled character to a gnarled tree. The ridges of Arran haunt 
Ayrshire — Bums must daily have seen them from his door at Mossgiel— and 
yet, to this most striking object in his range of vision, there is not a single 
allusion in his letters and poems. If Wordsworth had been placed in the same 
environment, how he would have made his suns rise or set on Arran ! After 
all, it is usually the town-poets — men like Hunt and Keats — who go philandering 
after nature, who are enraptured by the graceful curvature of ferns and the colours 
of mosses and lichens. Bums had an exquisite delight in Nature, especially in her 
more sombre and gloomy aspects ; but he took a deeper interest in man, and, as a 
consequence, the chief interest of his poems is of a moral kind. We value them 
not so much for their colour, their harmony, their cudous felicities of expression, 
as for the gleams of sagacity, the insight into character, the strong homely sense, 
and those wonderful short sentences scattered everywhere. Of those short lines and 
sentences^ now sly, now caustic, now broadly humorous, now purely didactic, no 
writings, if Shakespeare's be excepted, have a greater abundance. They circulate 
everywhere like current coin ; they have passed like iron into the blood of our com 
mon speech. Of Bums's conversation in Edinburgh we have little recorded that is 
specially characteristic — and for this we blame not Burns, but his^ reporters. The 
best thing — indeed, the only true and deep thing — is the simple statement which 
stmck Dugald Stewart so much when the pair were standing on the Braid hills, 
looking out on the fair. morning w^orld. Beneath were cottages, early sparrows 
doubtless noisy in the thatch, pillars of blue smoke, telling of preparation of 
breakfast for labourers afield, curling in the calm air. Burns took in the whole 
landscape, and declared that, in hLs view, the worthiest object it contained was the 
cluster of smoking cots, knowing as he did, what worth, what affection, what pious 
contentment and happiness, nestled within them. This really is a gleam into the 
man's inmost soul. Poetry, to him, lay in the cottage rather than in the tree that 
overshadowed it, or the stream that sparkled past it. In one of his poems he lays 
down the doctrine in express terms — 

" To mak a happy fireside dime 

Ta weans and wife, 
That's the true pathos and sublime 
Of human life." 

The poetry of a man so intensely humane is certain to come home to the bosoms 
and businesses of all other men — powerfully to the happy, more powerfully to the 
miserable, who are ever in the majority. To the wretched, out of the Bible, there 
is no such solace as the poetry of Bums. His genius comes to their hovels, their 
poor bread wetted with tears, as Howard came to the strong places of pestilence — 
irradiating, consoling; like the hearing of soft tones, like the touches of tender 
bjmds. And then his large friendliness flows out in every direction. The " n* juse " 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xxxix 

is his ''poor earth-bom companion and fellow-mortal." He pities the *' silly- 
sheep," and the " chittering wing" of the bird perched on the frozen spray. The 
farmer speaks to his old mare "Maggie" as he would to a comrade, who had 
shared with him his struggles, toils, arid triumphs. The poetry of Burns flows 
into a wintry world, like a tepid gulf-stream— mitigating harsh climates, breathing 
genial days, carrying with it spring-time and the cuckoo's note. 

Of his humour again — which is merely his love laughing and playing antics in 
very extravagance of its joy— what can be said, except that it is the freshest, most 
original, most delightful in the world? What a riot of fun in Tarn O'' Shanter ; 
what strange co-mixture of mirth and awfulness in Death and Dr. Hornbook ; what 
extravaganza in the Address to a Haggis! To Burns's eye the world was dark 
enough, usually , but on the gala days and carnivals of his spirit Mirth rules the 
hour, ragged Poverty dances all the lighter for his empty pockets, Death himself 
grins as he is poked in the lean ribs. And if, as is said, from the sweetest wine 
you can extract the sourest vinegar, one'can fancy into what deadly satire this love 
will congeal itself, when it becomes hate." Burns hates his foe — be it man or 
doctrine — as intensely as he loves his mistress. Holy Williis Prayer is a satirical 
crucifixion— slow, lingering, inexorable. He hated Hypocrisy, he tore its holy robe, 
and for the outrage Hypocrisy did not forgive him while he lived, nor has it yet 
learned to forgive him. 

If we applaud the Roman Emperor who found Rome brick and left it marble, 
what shall we say of the man who found the songs of his country indelicate and left 
them pure— who made wholesome the air which the spirit and the affections breathe ? 
And Bums did this. He drove immodesty from love, and coarseness from humour. 
And not only dic^he purify existing Scottish Song ; he added to it all that it has 
of best and rarest. Since his day, no countryman of his, whatever may be his mood, 
need be visited by a sense of solitariness, or ache with a pent-up feeling. If he is 
glad, he will find a song as merry as himself ; if sad, he will find one that will sigh 
with his own woe. In Burns's Songs, love finds an exquisite companionship ; in- 
dependence a backer and second ; conviviality a roaring table, and the best fellows 
round it ; patriotism a deeper love of country, and a gayer scorn of death than even 
its own. And in so adding to, and purifying Scottish song, Burns has conferred 
the greatest benefit on his countrymen that it is in the power of a poet to confer. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



OF 



BURNS'S LIFE AND WORKS. 



ALLOWAY. 

1759. 

January 25. — Robert Burns bom at Alloway, parish of Ayr, in a clay-built 
cottage, the work of his father's own hands. His father, William Burnes (so the 
family name was always written until changed by the poet), was a native of Kincar- 
dineshire, born November 11, 1721. His mother, Agnes Brown, born March 17, 
1732, was daughter of a farmer in Carrick, Ayrshire. The poet's parents were 
married December 15, 1757. William Burnes was then a gardener and farm-overseer. 

1765— (-^TAT. Six). 

Sent to a school at Alloway Mill, kept by one Campbell, who was succeeded in 
May by John Murdoch, a young teacher of uncommon merit, engaged by William 
Burnes and four of his -neighbours, who boarded him alternately at their houses, 
and guaranteed him a small salary. Two advantages were thus possessed by 
the poet an excellent father and an excellent teacher. 

MOUNT OLIPHANT. 

1766— (Seven). 

William Burnes removed to the farm of Mount Oliphant, two miles distant. 
His sons still attended Alloway school. The books used were a Spelling Book. 
the Nnv Testament, the Bible, Mason's Collection of Prose and Ferse, and Fisher's 
English Grammar. 

17€8--(NiNE). 

Murdoch gave up Alloway school. Visiting the Burnes family before his depar- 
ture, he took with him, as a present, the play of Titus Andronicns; he read part 
of the play aloud, but the horrors of the scene shocked and distressed the children, 



xlii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

and Robert threatened to burn the book if it was left ! Instead of it Murdoch gave 
them a comedy, the Sclwol for Love (translated from the French) and an English 
Grammar. He had previously lent Robert a Life of Hannibal. " The earliest 
composition that I recollect taking any pleasure in," says the poet, "was the Vision 
of Mirza and a hymn of Addison's beginning Hoio are Thy servants blest^ Lord! 
I particularly remember one half-stanza, which was music to my boyish ear — 

' For though in dreadful whirls we hung 
High on the broken wave ! * " 

He had found these in Mason's Collection. The latent seeds of poetry were 
further cultivated in his mind by an old woman living in the family, Betty David- 
son, who had a great store of tales, songs, ghost-stories, and legendary lore. 



1770 -(Eleven). 

By the time he was ten or eleven years of age he was an excellent English 
scholar, "a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles." After the departure of 
Murdoch, William Bumes was the only instructor of his sons and other children. 
He taught them arithmetic, and procured /or their use Salmon's Geographical 
Grammar, Derhatn's Physics and Astro- Theology, and Ray's Wisdom of God in the 
Creation. These gave the boys some idea of Geography, Astronomy, and Natural 
History. He had also Stackhouse' s History of the Bible, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine 
of Original Sift, a volume of English History (reigns of James I. and Charles I.). 
The blacksmith lent the common metrical Life of Sir William Wallace (which was 
read with Scottish fervour and enthusiasm), and a maternal uncle supplied a Collec- 
tion of Letters by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, which inspired Robert with o 
strong desire to excel in letter- writing. 



1772— (Thirteen). 

To improve their penmanship, William Bumes sent his sons, week about, during 
the summer quarter, to the parish* school of Dalrymple, two or three miles distant. 
This year Murdoch was appointed teacher of English in Ayr school, and he re- 
newed his acquaintance with the Bumes family, sending them Popis Works and 
*' some other poetry." 



1773— (Fourteen). 

Robert boarded three weeks with Murdoch at Ayr in order to revise his English 
Grammar. He acquired also a smattering of French, and on returning home he 
took with him a French Dictio7iary and French Grammar, and a copy of Telhnaque. 
He attempted Latin, but soon abandoned it. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, xHii 



1774— (Fifteen). 

His knowledge of French introduced him to some respectable families in Ayr 
(Dr. Malcolm's and others). A lady lent him the Spectator^ Pope's Horner^ and 
several other books. In this year began with him love and poetry. His partner 
in the harvest-field was a "bewitching creature" a year younger than himself, Nelly 
Kilpatrick, daughter of the blacksmith,, who sang sweetly, and on her he after* 
wards wrote his first song and first effort at rhyme, (?, once I loved a bonie lass. 



1775— (Sixteen), ^ 

About this time Robert was the principal labourer on the farm. From the un- 
productiveness of the soil, the loss of cattle, and other causes, William Burnes had 
got into pecuniary difficulties, and the threatening letters of the factor (the landlord 
being dead) used to set the distressed family all in tears. The character of the 
factor is drawn in the Tale of Twa Dogs. The hard labour, poor living, and 
sorrow of this period formed the chief cause of the poet's subsequent fits of melan- 
choly, frequent headaches, and palpitation of the heart. 



1776— (Seventeen). 

Spent his seventeenth summer (so in poet's MS. British Museum ; Dr. Currie 
altered the date to nineteenth) on a smuggling coast in Ayrshire, at Kirkoswald, on 
purpose to learn mensuration, surveying, &c. He made good progress, though 
mixing somewhat in the dissipation of the place, which had then a flourishing 
contraband trafle. Met the second of his poetical heroines, Peggy Thomson, 
on whom he afterwards wrote his fine song Now wesilin winds and slaughtering 
guns. The charms of this maiden "overset his trigonometry and set him off at a 
tangent from the sphere of his studies." On his return from Kirkoswald ("in my 
seventeenth year" he writes) he attended a dancing school to "give his manners a 
brush." His father had an antipathy to these meetings, and his going "in ab- 
solute defiance of his father's cornm'ands" {sic in orig.) was an "instance of rebellion" 
which he conceived brought on him the paternal resentment and even dislike. 
Gilbert Burns dissents altogether flom this conclusion : the poet's extreme sensi- 
bility and regret for his one act of disobedience led him unconsciously to exaggerate 
the circumstances of the case. At Kirkoswald he had enlarged his reading by 
the addition of Thomson's and Shenstone's IVorhs, and among the other .books to 
vi'hich he had access at this period, besides those mentioned above, were some plays 
of Shakespeare, Allan Ramsay's Works, Hervey's Meditations, and a Select Collec- 
tion of English Songs ("The Lark," 2 vols.). This last work was, he says, his 
vade niecuvi ; he pored over it driving his cart or v/alking to labour, and carefully 
noted the true tender or sublime from affectation and fustian. He composed this 
year two stanzas, / dream' d I lay where Jloivers tvere. springing. 



xllv CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

LOCHLEA. 

1777 — (Eighteen). 

William Bunies and family remove to a larger farm at. Lochlea, parish of 
Tarbolton. Take possession at Whitsunday. Affairs for a time look brighter, and 
all work diligently. Robert and Gilbert have ^7 per annmn each, as wages, from 
their father, and they also take land from him for the purpose of raising flax on 
their own account. "Though, when young, the poet was bashful and awkward in 
his intercourse with women, as he approached manhood his attachment to their 
society became very strong, and he was constantly the victim of some fair enslaver." 
{jGilbert Burns.) He was in the secret, he says, ol alf the loves of the parish of 
Tarbolton .' 

1778 — (Nineteen). 

'* I was," he says, " about eighteen or nineteen when I sketched the outlines of 
a tragedy." The whole had escaped'his memory except a fragment of twenty lines : 
All devil as I am, ^'c. 

1780— (Twenty-one). 

The "Bachelors' Club" established at Tarbolton by Robert and Gilbert Burns, 
and five other young men. Meetings were held once a month and questions 
debated. The sum expended by each member was not to exceed threepence. 

1781— (Twentv-two). 

David Sillar admitted a member of the Bachelors' Club. He describes Burns: 
" I recollect hearing his neighbours observe he had a great deal to say for himself, 
and that they suspected his principles (his religious principles). He wore the only 
tied hair in the parish, and in the church his plaid, which was of a particular 
colour, I think fillemot, he wrapped in a particular manner round his shoulders. 
Between sermons we often took a walk in the fields ; in these walks I have fre- 
quently been struck by his facility in addressing the f;'iir sex, and it was generally a 
death-blow to our conversation, however agreeable, to meet a female acquaintance. 
Some book he always carried and read when not otherwise employed. It was like- 
wise his custom to read at table. In one of my visits to Lochlea, in time of a 
sowen supper, he was so intent on reading, I think Tristram S/iandyy- that his 
spoon falling out of his hand made him exclaim in a tone scarcely imitable, 'Alas, 
poor Yorick ! '" The poet had now added to his collection of books Mackenzie's 
Afan of .Feeling (which he said he prized next to the Bible) and Man of the 
World, Sterne's Works, and Macpherson's Ossian. He would appear also to have 
had the poetical works of Young. Among the fair ones whose society he courted 
was a superior young woman, bearing the unpoetical name of Ellison Begbie. She 



eHRONOLOGlCAL TABLE. xlv 

Was the daughter of a small farmer at Galston, but was servant with a family on 
the banks of the Cessnock. On her he wrote a " song of similes," beginning On 
Cessnock banks there lives a lass, and the earliest of his printed correspondence is 
addressed to Ellison. His letters are grave, sensible epistles, written with remark- 
able purity and correctness of language. At this time poesy was, he says, " a 
darling walk for his mind." The oldest of his printed pieces were Winter^ a Dirge, 
the Death of poor Mailie, John Barleycorn, and the three songs // was upon a 
Lammas night. Now ivestlin winds and slaughf ring gnns, and Behind yon hills 
where Stinchar floivs. We may add to these O Tibbie I hue seen the day and My 
Father was a Farmer. His exquisite lyric Mary, at thy zvindozu be, was also, 
he says, one of his juvenile works. 



1782— (Twenty-three). 

Ellison Begbie refuses his hand. She was about to leave her situation, and he 
expected himself to "remove a little further off." He went to the town of Irvine. 
*'My twenty-third year," he says, "was to me an important era. Partly through 
whim, and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined a 
flax-dresser in a neighbouring town, to learn his trade, and carry on the business of 
manufacturing and retailing flax. This turned out a sadly unlucky affair. My 
partner was a scoundrel of the first water, who made money by the mystery of 
thieving, and to finish the whole, while we were giving a welcoming carousal to the 
New Year, our shop, by the drunken carelessness of my partner's wife, took fire, 
and was burned to ashes ; and left me, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence."* In 
Irvine his reading was only increased, he says, by two volumes of Pamela, and 
one of Ferdinand, Count Fathom, which gave him some idea of novels. Rhyme, 
except some religious pieces that are in print, he had given up, but meeting with 
FergussojC s Scottish Poems, he "strung anew his lyre with emulating vigour." He 
also formed a friendship for a young fellow, "a very noble character," Richard 
Brown, and with others of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been 
used to, "the consequence of which was," he says, "that soon after I resumed the 
plough, I wrote the PoeCs Welcome " (to his illegitimate child). But this was not till 
the summer of 1 784. Before leaving Lochlea he became a Freemason, 

* From origfiu Brit. Museum. Burns wrote an interesting and affecting letter to his father, from 
Irvine. Dr. Currie dates it 1781, vvliich we think is an error. The poet's statement is corroborated 
by his brother's narrative, and the stone chimney of the room occupied by the poet is inscribed, 
evidently by his own hand, " R. B. 1782." He consoled himself for his loss after this fashion :— 

"O, why the deuce should I repine, 
And be an ill foreboder? 
I'm twent.y-thrce, and five feet nine, 
I'll go and be a sodger." ^ 



xtvi CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



MOSSGIEL. 

1784 — (Twenty-five). 

February 13th. — William Burnes died at Lbchlea, in his 64th year, his affairs in 
utter ruin. His sons and two grown-up daughters ranked as creditors of their 
father for arrears of wages, and raised a little money to stock another farm. This 
new farm was that of Mossgiel, parish of Mauchline, which had been sub-let to them 
by Gavin Hamilton, writer (or attorney) in Mauchline. They entered on the farm 
in March : "Come, go to, I will be wise," resolved the poet, but bad seed and a 
late hyvestideprived them of half their expected crop. Poetry was henceforth to be 
the only successful vocation of Robert Burns. To tliis year may be assigned the 
Epistle to yohn Rankine (a strain of rich humour, but indelicate), and some minor 
pieces. In April or May he commenced his acquaintance with "Boniejean" — 
Jean Armour — an event which coloured all his future life, imparting to it its 
brightest lights and its darkest shadows. 

1785— (TW^ENTY-SIX). 

In January the Epistle to Davie completed : Death and Doctor Hornbook written 
about February. Epistles to J. Lapraik, April i, 21, and September 13. Epistle 
to W. Simpson in. May. The Tua Herds, or the Holy Tidzie: this satire was the 
first of his poetic offspring that saw the light (excepting some of his songs), and it 
was received by a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, with a "roar of 
applause." Burns had now taken his side with the New Light, or rationalistic 
section of the church, then in violent antagonism to the Auld Lights or evangelistic 
party, -which comprised the great bulk of the lower and middling classes. To this 
year belong The Jolly Beggars, Halloween, The Cotter's Saturday Night, Man was 
made to Mourn, Address to the Deil, To a Mouse, A Winter Night, Holy Willie s 
Prayer, and Hie Holy Fair (early MS. in British Museum), Epistle to James 
Smith, &c. 

17 86— (Twenty-seven). 

In rapid succession were produced Scotch Drink, The Author'' s Earnest Cry and 
Prayer, The Tzva Dogs, The Ordination, Address to the Unco Guid, To a Mountain 
Daisy, Epistle to a Young Friend, A Bard^s Epitaph, The Lamoit, Despondency, 
&c. Such a body of original poetry, written within about twelve months — poetry so 
natural, forcible, and picturesque, so quaintj sarcastic, humorous, and tender — had 
unquestionably not appeared since Shakespeare. Misfortunes, however,. were gather- 
ing round the poet. The farm had proved a failure, and the connexio^i with Jean 
Armour brought grief and shame. He gave her a written acknowledgment of 
marriage, but at the urgent entreaty of her father she consented that this document 
should be destroyed. The poet was frantic with distress and indignation. He 
resolved on quitting the country, engaged to go out to Jamaica as book-keeper on 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xlvii 

an estate, and to raise money for his passage arranged to publish his poems. 
Subscription papers were issued in April. In the meantime, in bitter resentment 
of the perfidy, as he esteemed it, of the unfortunate Jean Armour, he renewed his 
intimacy with a former love, Mary Campbell, or "Highland Mary," who had been 
a servant in the family of Gavin Hamilton, and was. now dairy-maid at Coilsfield. 
He proposed marriage to Mary Campbell, was accepted, and Mary left her service 
and went to her parejits in Argyleshire, preliminary to her union with the poet. 
They parted on the banks of the Ayr, on Sunday, May 14th, exchanging Bibles 
and vowing eternal fidelity. No more is heard of Mary until after her death, which 
took place in October of this year. The Poems were published in August, an 
edition of 600 copies, and were received with enthusiastic applause. The poet 
cleared about 20/. by the volume, took a passage in the first ship that was to sail 
from the Clyde (nothing is said of Mary accompanying him), and was preparing to 
embark, when a letter from Dr. Blacklock, offering encouragement for a second 
edition, roused his poetic ambition, and led him to try his fortune in Edinburgh. 
Before starting he made the acquaintance of Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop, the most 
valued and one of the most accoinplished of his correspondents. 

EDINBURGH. 

November 28th, 1786. — Burns reaches the Scottish capital, and instantly becomes 
the lion of the season. He is courted and caressed by the witty, the fashionable, 
and the learned — by Dugald Stewart, Harry Erskine, Hugh Blair, Adam Ferguson, 
Dr. Robertson, Lord Monboddo, Dr. Gregory, Eraser Tytler, Lord Glencairn, 
Lord Eglinton, Patrick Miller (the ingenious laird of Dalswinton), the fascinating 
Jane, Duchess of Gordon, Miss Burnet, &c. Henry Mackenzie, the "Man of 
Feeling," writes a critique on the Poems in the Lounger — the members of the 
Caledonian Hunt subscribe for a hundred copies of the new edition — and the poet 
is in a fair way, as he says, of becoming as eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John 
Bunyan. 

1787— (Twenty-eight). 

Burns applies for and obtains permission to erect a tombstone in Canongate 
Churchyard over the remains of Fergusson the poet. In April appears the second 
edition of the Poems, consisting of 3,000 copies, with a list of subscribers prefixed, 
and a portrait of the poet. In this edition appeared Death and Doctor Hornbook, the 
Ordination, and Address to the Unco Guid, which were excluded from the first 
edition, and several new pieces, the best of which are the Brigs 0/ Ayr and Tarn 
Samson's Elegy. On 5th of May the poet sets off on a tour with a young friend, 
Robert Ainslie, in order to visit the most interesting scenes in the south of Scotland. 
Crossing the Tweed over Coldstream bridge. Burns knelt down on the English side 
and poured forth, uncovered, and with strong emotion, the prayer for Scotland 
contained in the two last stanzas of the Cotter's Saturday Night. June 4th, he was 
made an honorary burgess of the town of Dumfries, after which he proceeded to 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Ayrshire, and arrived at Maucbline on the 9th of June. "It will easily be con- 
ceivedj" says Dr. Currie, "with what pleasure and pride he was received by his 
mother, his brothers, and sisters. He had left them poor and comparatively 
friendless ; he returned to them high in public estimation, and easy in his circum- 
stances." At this time the poet renewed his intimacy with Jean Armoui\ Towards 
the end of the month he made a short Highland tour, in which he visited Loch 
Lomond and Dumbarton, and returning to Mauchline, we find him (July 25th) 
presiding as Depute Grand Master of the Tarbolton Mason Lodge, and admitting 
Professor Dugald Stewart, Mr. Alexander of Ballochmyle, and others, as honorary 
members of the Lodge. On the 25th of August the poet set off from Edinburgh on 
a northern tour with William Nicol of the High School. They visited Bannock- 
burn, spent two days at Blair with the Duke of Athole and family, proceeded as far 
as Inverness, then by way of Elgin, Fochabers (dining with the Duke and Duchess 
of Gordon), on to Aberdeen, Stonehaven, and Montrose, where he met his relatives 
the Burneses. Arrived at Edinburgh on the i6th September. In December made 
the acquaintance of Clarinda, or Mrs. M^Lehose, with whom he kept up a 
passionate correspondence for about three months. Overset by a drunken coach- 
man, and sent home with a severely bruised knee, which confined him for several 
weeks. Mr. A. Wood, surgeon "lang sandy Wood," appHes to Mr. Graham 
of Fintry, Commissioner of Excise, and gets Burns's name enrolled among the 
number of expectant Excise officers. During all this winter the poet zealously 
assists Mr. James Johnson in his publication, the Scots Musical Museum. 



1788 — (Twenty-nine). 

Left Edinburgh for Dumfries to inspect Mr. Miller's lands at Dalswinton. 
Stopped by the way at Mossgiel, February 23d.. Poor Jean Armour, Avho had 
again loved not wisely, but too well, was living apart, separated from her parents, 
and supported by Burns. He visited her the day before his departure for Dum- 
fries (apparently February 24th), and it is painful to find him writing thus to 
Clarinda — "T this morning, as I came home, called for a certain woman. I am 
disgusted with her. I cannot endure her. I, while my heart smote me for the 
profanity, tried to compare her with my Clarinda; 'twas setting the expiring 
glimmer of a farthing taper beside the cloudless glory of the meridian sun. Here 
was tasteless insipidity, vulgarity of soul, and mercenary fawning; there, polished 
good sense, Heaven-born genius, and the most generous, the most delicate, the 
most tender passion. I have done with her, and she with me."* In less than two 
months they were married ! In this, as in the Highland Mary episode, Burns's 
mobility, or "excessive susceptibility of immediate impressions" f seems something 
marvellous, and more akm to the French than the Scotch character. Rettirned to 
Edinburgh in March, and on the 13th took a lease of the farm of Ellisland, on the 

* From the origmal, published in Banffshire journal. 

\ So defined by Byron, who was himself a victim to this "unhappy attribute." See "Don Juan," 
canto xv». 97. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xlix 

banks of the Nith. On the 19th settled with Creech, the profits from the Edin- 
burgh edition and copyright being about 500/., of which the poet gave 180/. to his 
brother Gilbert, as a loan, to enable him to continue (with the family) at Mossgiel. 
In the latter end of April Burns was privately married to Jean Armour, and shortly 
afterwards wrote on her his two charming songs Of cC the airts the %vind can bla-w 
and Of were I on Parnassjis hill I 

ELLISLAND. 

In June the poet went to reside on his farm, his wife remaining at Mauchline 
until a new house should be built at Ellisland. Formed the jacquaintance of 
Captain Riddel of Glenriddel, a gentleman of literary and antiquarian tastes, who 
resided at Friars Carse, within a mile of Ellisland. On 28th June wrote Verses in 
Friars Carse 'Hermitage. August 5th, the poet at Mauchline made public acknow- 
ledgment of his marriage before the Kirk Session, at the same time giving "a 
guinea note for behoof of the poor." In December conducted Mrs. Burns to the 
banks of the Nith. / hae a wife o^ my ain ! 

1789— (Thirty). 

Visited Edinburgh in February, and received about 50^- more of copyright 
money from Creech. August 18, son born to the poet, named Francis Wallace. 
About the same time received appointment to the Excise. October 16, the great 
bacchanalian contest for the Whistle look place at Fxiars Carse in presence of the 
poet. *0n the 20th of October (as calculated, and indeed proved by Mr, Chambers) 
the sublime and affecting lyric, To Mary in Heaven, was composed. Met Grose 
the antiquary at. Friars Carse, and afterwards wrote the humorous poem On 
Captain Grose's Peregrinations. In December was written the election ballad The 
Five Carlines. 

1790— (Thirty-one). 

January ii. — Writes to Gilbert that his farm is a ruinous affair. On the 14th, 
addressing his friend Mr. Dunbar, W.S. relative to his Excise appointment, he 
says ; " I found it a very convenient business to have 50/. per annum ; nor have I 
yet felt any of those mortifying circumstances in it I was led to fear." The duties 
were hard ; he had to ride at least 200 miles every week, but he still contributed 
largely to the Scots Musical Museum, wrote the elegy On Captain Malthciu Hen- 
derson (one of the most exquisite, of the poet's productions), and in autumn 
produced Tam O' Shanter, by universal assent the crowning glory and master- 
piece of its author. 

1791— (Thirty-two). 

In February wrote Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, and Lament for James Earl 
of Glencairn. In March had his right arm broken by the fall of his horse, and 



1 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 



was for some weeks disabled from writing. In this month also occurred an event 
which probably caused deeper pain than the broken arm. First, as Mr. Chambers 
says, "we have a poor girl lost to the reputable world ;" (this was " Anna with the 
gowden locks," niece to the hostess of the Globe Tavern;) "next we have Burns 
seeking an asylum for a helpless infant at his brother's ; then a magnanimous wife 
interposing with the almost romantically generous offer to become herself its nurse 
and guardian."* April 9, a third son born to the poet, and named William Nicol. 
At the close of the month the poet sold his crop at EUisland, "and sold it well." 
Declined to attend the crowning of Thomson's bust at Ednani, but wrote verses 
for the occasion. In November made a short visit — his last — to Edinburgh, and 
shortly afterwards wrote his inimitable farewell to Clarinda, Ae fond kiss and then 
we sroer. The fourth stanza of this song Sir Walter Scott said contained " the 
essence of a thousand love tales." 

DUMFRIES. 

At Martinmas (Nov. 11) the poet having disposed of his stock and other effects 
at EUisland, and surrendered the lease of the farm to Mr. Miller the proprietor, 
removed with his family to the town of Dumfries. He occupied for a year and a 
half three rooms of a second floor on the north side of Bank Street (then called 
the Wee Vennel). On taking up his residence in the town, Burns was well 
received by the higher class of inhabitants and the neighbouring gentry. One of 
the most accomplished of the latter was Mrs. Walter Riddel {ncc Maria Woodley), 
then aged only about eighteen. This lady, with her husband, a brother of 
Captain- Riddel of Glenriddel, lived on a small estate about four miles from 
Dumfries, which ia compliment to the lady they called Woodley Park (now 
Goldielea). 

1792— (Thirty-three). 

February 27.— Burns behaved gallantly in seizing and boarding a smuggling brig 
in the Sohvay. The vessel, with her arms and stores, was sold by auction in 
Dumfries, and Burns purchased four carronades or small guns, for which he paid 
3/. These he sent, with a letter, to the French Convention, but they were retained 
at Dover by the Custom-house authorities. This circumstance is supposed to have 
drawn on the poet the notice of his jealous superiors. He warmly symjiatliised 
with the French people in their struggle against despotism, and the , Board of 
Excise ordered an inquiry into the- poet's political conduct, though it is doubtful 
whether any reprimand was ever given him, In September Mr. George Thomson, 
Edinburgh, commenced his publication of national songs and melodies, and Bums 

* Mrs. Burns was much attached to the child, who remained with her till she was seventeen 
years of age, when she married a soldier, John Thomson of the Stirling Militia. She is still 
living, and strongly resembles her father. Poor Anna the mother felt deeply the disgrace ; she, 
however, made a decent marriage in Leith, but died comparatively voung, without any family by 
her husband, 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. H 



cordially lent assistance to the undertaking, but disclaimed all idea or acceptance 
oT pecuniaiy remuneration. On the 14th of November he transmitted to Thomson 
the song of Highland Mary, and next month one of the most arch and humorous 
of all his dittier^ Duncan Gray cam here to woo. 



1793— (Thirty-four). 

The poet continues his invaluable and disinterested labours for Mr. Thomson's 
publication. In July he makes an excursion into Galloway with his friend Mr. 
Syme, stamp distributor, and according to that gentleman (though Burns's own 
statement on the subject is different) he composed his national song, Scots wha hae, 
in the midst of a thunder-storm on the wilds of Kenmure. The song was sent to 
Thomson in September, along with one no less popular, Aidd Lang Syne. At 
Whitsuntide the poet removed from the " Wee Vennel " to a better house (rent 8/. 
per annum) in the Mill-hole Brae (now Burns Street), and in this house he lived till 
his death. His widow continued to occupy it till her death, March ^26, 1834. 



1794.— (Thirty-five). 

At a dinner-party at Woodley Park on one occasion the poet, like most of the 
guests, having exceeded in wine, was guilty of some act of rudeness to the 
accomplished hostess, which she and her friends resented very warmly. A rupture 
took place, and iot nearly a twelvemonth there was no intercourse between the 
parties. During this interval Burns wrote several lampoons on Mrs. Riddel, 
wholly unworthy of him as a man or as a poet. April 4, Captain Riddel of 
Glenriddel died unreconciled to Burns, yet the latter honoured his memory with a 
sonnet August 12, another son born to the poet, and named James Glencairn. 
During tliis^ autumn and winter Bums, wrote some of his finest songs, inspired- by 
the charms of Jane Lorimer, the " Chloris " of many a lyric. In November he 
composed his lively song, Contented ivi' little and cantie 7vP mair, which he 
intended as a picture of his own mind, but it is only, as Mr. Chambers says, the 
picture of one aspect of his mind. Mr. Perry of the Morning Chronicle wishes to 
engage Burns as a contributor to his, paper, Ijut the "truly generous offer*' is 
declined, lest connexion with the Whig journal should injure his prospects in the 
Excise. For a short time he acted as supervisor, and thought that his political sins 
were forgiven. 

1795— (Thirty-six). 

In January the poet composed his manly and independent song For cC that and 
«* that. His intercourse with Maria Riddel Is renewed, and she sends him 
occasionally a book, or a copy of verses, or a ticket for the theatre. He never 

dl 



Hi CHROh'OLOGIC^lL TABLE. 

relaxes his genial labours for the musical works of Johnson and Thomson, and he 
wl'ites a series of election ballads in favour of the Whig candidate, Mr. Heron. 
He joins the Dumfries-shire corps of Volunteers, enrolled in the month of March, 
and writes his loj'al and patriotic song, Docs haughty Gaitl invasion threat^ also 
liis fine national strain, Their groves of s^cwi myrtle let foreign lands reckon^ and 
one oC the best of his ballads, Last May a bra'u wooer. The poet's health, 
howevef,. gives way, lyid premature age has set in. 



1796— (Thirty-seven). 

The decline of the poet is accelerated by an accidental circumstance. One 
night in January he sat late in the Globe Tavern. There was deep snow on the 
ground, and in going home he sank down overpowered, by drowsiness and the 
liquor he had taken, and slept for some hours in the open air. From the cold 
caught on tliis occasion he never wholly recovered. He still, however, continued 
his song-writing, and one of tlie most beautiful and most touching of his lyrics was 
also one of his latest. This was the song beginning /Avv'j a health to ane I lo\' 
dear^ written on Jessy Lewars, a maiden of eighteen, sister to a brother exciseman, 
who proved a "ministering angel" to the poet in his last illness. In May, another 
election called forth another ballad, Wha xoill buy my troggin ? And about the 
middle of June we find the poet ^vriting despondingly to his old friend Johnson, 
and requesting a copy of the Scots Musical Museum to present to a young lady. 
Tiiis was no doubt the copy presented to Jessy Lewars, June 26th, inscribed with 
the verses, Thine be the volumes^ jfessy fair. As a last effort for health. Bums went 
on the 4th of July to Brow, a sea-bathing hamlet on tlie Solway. There he was 
visited by Maria Riddel, who thought " the stamp of death was imprinted on his 
features." He was convinced himself that his illness would prove fatal, and some 
time before this he had said to his wife, " Don't be afraid : I'll be more respected a 
hundred years after I am dead, than I am at present." Mrs. Riddel saw the poet 
again on the 5tli of July, when tliey parted to meet no more. On tlae 7th lie wrote 
to his friend Alexander Cunningham to move the Commissioners of Excise to 
continue his full salary of 50/. instead of reducing it, as was the rule in the case of 
excisemen off duty, to 35/. Mr. Findlater, his superior ofHcer, says he had no 
doubt this would have been done had the poet lived. On the loth Burns wrote to 
his brother as to his hopeless condition, his debts, and his despair ; and on the 
same day he addressed a request to his father-in-law, stern old James Annour, that 
hq would write to Mrs. Armour, then in Fife, to come to the assistance of her 
daughter, the poet's wife, during the time of her confinement. His thoughts 
turned also to his friend Mrs. Dunlop, who had unaccountably been silent for some 
time. He recalled her interesting correspondence : " With what pleasure did I use 
to break up the seal ! The remembrance adds yet one pulse more to my poor 
palpitating heait. Farewell!" Close on this dark hour of anguish came a 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Kii 

lawyer's letter urging payment — and no.doubt hinting at the serious consequences 
of non-payment — of a haberdasher's account. This legal missive served to conjure 
up before the distracted poet the image of a jail with all its horrors, and on the 
I2th he wrote two letters — one to his cousin in Montrose begging an advance of lo/., 
and one to Mr. George Thomson imploring 5/. "Forgive, forgive me!" He 
left the sea-side on the i8th, weak and feverish, but was able the same day, on 
arriving at his house in Dumfries, to address a second note to James Armour, 
reiterating the wish expressed six days before, but without eliciting any reply — 
" Do, for Heaven's sake, send Mrs. Armour here immediately." From this period 
he was closely confined to bed (according to the statement of his widow), and was 
scarcely "-^/wj^^" for half an hour together. He was aware of this infirmity, 
and told his wife that she was to touch him and remind him when he was going 
wrong. One day he got out of his bed, and his wife found him sitting in a corner 
of the room with the bed-clothes about him ; she got assistance, and he suffered 
himself to be gently led back to bed. The day before he died he called very 
quickly and with a hale voice, " Gilbert ! Gilbert !" On the morning of the 21st, 
at daybreak, death was obviously near at hand; and the children were sent for. 
They had been removed to the house of Jessy Lewars and her brother, in order 
that the poet's dwelling might be kept quiet, and they were now summoned back 
that they might have a last look of their illustrious father in life. He was 
insensible, his mind lost in delirium, and, according to his eldest son, his last words 

were, "That d d rascal, Matthew Penn !" — an execration against the legal 

agent who had written the dunning letter. And so ended this sad and stormy life- 
drama, and the poet passed, as Mr. Carlyle has said, " not softly but speedily into 
that still country where the hail-storms and fire-showers do not reach, and the 
heaviest-laden wayfarer at length lays down his load." On the evening of Sunday, 
the 24th of July, the poet's remains were removed from his house to the Town 
Hall, and next day were interred with military honours. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Biographical Preface ..-..., v 

POEMS. 

The Twa Dogs i 

Scotch Drmk 6 

The Author's earnest Cry and Prayer . . 9 

The Holy Fair 14 

Death and Doctor Hornbook 190 

The Brigs of Ayr 24 

The Ordination izg 

The Calf 30 

Address to the Deil 31 

The Death and Dying Words of Poor 

Mailie, the Author's only Pet Yowe . 32 

Poor Mailie's Elegy ■ . . . 33 

To James Smith 34 

A Dream 36 

The Vision 38 

Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly 

Righteous ^ 41 

Tarn Samson's Elegy ....... 42 

Halloween 44 

The Jolly Beggars 48 

The Auld Farmer's New- Year Morning 

Salutation to his auld Mare, Maggie . 53 
To a Mouse, on turning her up in her nest 

w Ith the plough •. 54 

A Winter Night 5S 

Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet ... 57 
The Lament, occasioned by the Unfortu- 
nate Issue of a Friend's Amour ... 59 

Despondency ...► 60 

Winter ••.... 6r 

The Cotter's Saturday Night .... ib. 

Man was made to mourn 65 

A Prayer, in the prospect of Death. . . 66 

Stanzas on the same occasion .... 67 
Verses left by Burns in a Room where he 

slept ib. 

The First Psalm 68 

A Prayer, under the pressure of violent 

anguish ib. 

The First Six Verses of the Ninetieth 

Psalm ib. 

To a Mountain Daisy, on turning one 

down with the plough .;.... 69 

To Ruin ib. 

To Miss Logan, with Beattie's Poems . 70 

Epistle to a Young Friend ib. 

On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West 

Indies 71 

To a Haggis 72 

A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. . ib. 
To a Louse, on seeing one on a Lady's 

Bonnet, at Church . 74 

Address to Edinburgh 75 



Page 
Epistle to John Lapraik, an old Scottish 

Bard 75 

To the Same 77 

To William Simpson 78 

Epistle to John Rankine ...... 81 

Written in Friars-Carse Hermitage . . 82 

Ode, Sacred to the Memory of M rs. Oswald 83 

Elegy on Capt. Matthew Henderson . . ib. 
Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, on the 

Approach of Spring 85 

Epistle to R. Graham, Esq 86 

To Robert Graham, of Fintra, Esq. . . 88 

Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn . . 89 
Lines sent to Sir John Whiteford, of White- 

, ford, Bart, with the foregoing Poem . 90 

Tam o' Shanter .91 

On the late Captain Grose's Peregrinations 

thro' Scotland 95 

On seeing a wounded Hare limp by me . 96 
Address to the Shade of Thomson, on 

crowning his Bust at Ednam .... 97 

To Miss Cruikshank ib. 

On the Death of John M'Leod. Esq. . . ib. 
The humble Petition of Bniar Water to the 

noble Duke of Athole 98 

The Kirk's Alarm 59 

Address to the Toothacli loi 

Written with a pencil over the Chimney- 
piece in the parlour of the Inn at Ken- 
more, Taymouth ib. 

On the Birth of a Posthumous Child, born 
in peculiar circumstances of family dis- 
tress . . . . , 102 

Written with a pencil. Standing by the f;dl 

of Fyers, near Loch-Ness 103 

Second Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet . ib. 
The Inventory of the Poet's Goods and 

Chattels ^ , . . 104 

The Whistle 105 

Sketch, inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. 

Fox 107 

To Dr. Blacklock ........ 108 

Prologue spoken at the Theatre, Ellisland 109 

Elegy on the late Miss Burnet .... ib. 

The following Poem was written to a 
gentleman who had sent him a news- 
paper, and offered to continue it free of 

expense no 

Lines on an Interview with Lord Daer in 
The Rights of Woman. Prologue spoken 

by Miss Fontenelle ib. 

Address, spoken by Miss Fontenelle . . 112 

Verses to a young Lady 113 

Poem on Pastoral Poetry ...... 114 

Verses to Chloris, with a copy of the last 

Edition of his Poems ib. 



Ivi 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Poetical Address to Mr, William Tytler . 115 

Sketch. — New-Year Day 116 

Extempore, on Mr. William Smellie . . ib. 

Inscription for an Altar to Independence . 117 

Monody on a Lady famed for her Caprice ib. 
Sonnet, on the Death of Robert Riddel, 

Esq. of Glenriddel 118 

Impromptu, on Mrs. Riddel's Birthday . ib. 

To Miss Jessy Lewars, Dumfries . . . ib. 

Verses written under violent grief • • . 119 
Extempore to Mr. Syme, on refusing to 

dine with him ib. 

To Mr. Syme ib. 

Sonnet, on hearing a Thrush sing . . . ib. 

Poem, addressed to Mr. Mitchell . . . 120 
Sent to a Gentleman whom he had 

offended , ib. 

Poem on Life 121 

To Robert Graham, Esq. of Fintry . . ib. 

Epitaph on a Friend ib. 

Verses written at Selkirk 122 

Inscription on the Tombstone of the Poet 

Fergusson .......... 123 

A Grace before Dinner . • ib. 

A Verse, repeated on taking leave at a ' 

place in the Highlands ib. 

Liberty » ib. 

Fragment of an Ode to the Memory of 

Prince Charles Edward Stuart . . . 124 

Elegy on the Death of Robert Ruisseaux . ib. 
Answer to Verses addressed to the Poet 

by the Guidwife of Wanchope-House . 125 

To J. Lapraik ib. 

The Twa Herds 126 

To the Rev. John M'Math 128 

Holy Willie's Prayer 130 

Epitaph on Holy Willie . . . . i . 131 
On scaring some Water Fowl in Loch- 

Turit . . . 132 

To Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Ma'uchline . . ib. 

Epistle to Mr. M'Adam 133 

To Captain Riddel, Glenriddel .... ib. 
Verses intended to be written below a 

noble Earl's Picture 134 

To Terraughty, on his Birthday . . . io. 
To a Lady, with a present of a Pair of 

Drinking Glasses ib. 

The Vowels. . •. . , 135 

Sketch ' ib. 

Prologue for Mr. Sutherland's Benefit .* 136 

Elegy on the Year 1788 . . . . _ . . 137 
Verses written under the Portrait of 

Fergusson the Poet ib. 

Lament, written at a time when the Poet 

was about to leave Scotland .... 138 

Delia ib. 

On the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair ib. 

To Miss Ferrier 140 

Verses to an old Sweetheart, then married ib. 
The Poet's Welcome to his Illegitimate 

Child ib. 

Letter to John Goudie, Kilmarnock . . 141 

Letter to James Tennant, Glenconner . ib. 

Epistle from Esopus to Maria .... 142 

(^n a Suicide »44 

A Farewell **• 



Page 

The Farewell 144 

Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq. . . . ib. 

Stanzas on the Duke of Queensberry . . 147 
Verses on the Destruction of the Woods 

near Drumlanrig ib. 

Epistle to Major Logan -. 148 

Epitaph on the Poet's Daughter . . . 149 

Epitaph on Gabriel Richardson .... iO. 

On Stirling ib. 

Lines on being told that the foregoing 

Poem would affect his Prospects . . . 150 

The Reply ib. 

Epistle to Hugh Parker ib. 

Address of Beelzebub to the President of 

the Highland Society ib. 

To Mr. John Kennedy 151 

On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq. . 152 

To John M'Murdo, Esq. ...... 153 

On the Death of a Lap-dog, named Echo ib. 

Lines written at Loudon Manse. . . . ib. 

Orthodox, Orthodox. A Second Version 

of the Kirk's Alarm ........ ib. 

The Selkirk Grace 155 

Elegy on the Death of Peg Nicholson . ib. 
On seeing Miss Fontenelle in a favourite 

Character ib. 

The League and Covenant ib. 

On Miss. Jessy Lewars 156 

Epitaph on Miss Jessy Lewars .... ib. 

The Recovery of Jessy Lewars .... ib. 

The Toast > . . ib. 

'I'he Kirk of Lamington ...... ib. 

Written on a blank leaf of one of Miss 
■ Hannah Morc's Works, which she had 

given him ib 

Inscription on a Goblet 157 

The Book-worms ib. 

On Robert Riddel ib. 

Willie Chalmers ib. 

To John Taylor 158 

Lines written on a Bank-note .... ib. 

The Loyal Natives' "Verses ib. 

Bums's Reply-;-Extempore ib. 

Remorse . . '. » . . ib. 

The Toad-Eater 159 

To ib. 

' In vain would Prudence ' ib. 

' Though fickle Fortune ' ib. 

'I bum, I burn' . . ". 160 

Epigram on a noted Coxcomb .... ib. 

Tarn the Chapman ib. 

To Dr. Maxwell, on Miss Jessy Craig's 

Recovery 161 

Fragment ib. 

There's Naethin like the honest Nappy . ib. 
Prologue, spoken by Mr. Woods, on his 

Benefit-night . ib. 

Nature's Law. A Poem humbly inscribed 

toG. H. Esq. . . 162 

The Cats like Kitchen . 163 

Tragic Fragment ib. 

Extempore. On passing a Lady's Carriage, ib. 

Fragments . 164 

Epitaph on William Nicol . ...... 165 

Answer to a Poetical Epistle sent the 

Author by a Tailor ib. 



Contend. 



Ivii 



Extempore lines, in answer to a card 
from an intimate Friend of Burns . . 

Lines \vritten Extempore ia a Lady's 
Pocket-book 

The Hehpeck'd Husband 

Kpitaph on a Henpeck'd Country Squire 

Epigram on said occasion .... 

Another /. L 'r ' 

Verses written on a Window of the Inn at 
Carron . . . . • -^ •, • • • • 

Lines on being asked why.God had made 
Miss Davies so little and Mrs. * * * so 
large 

Epigram. Written at Inverary .... 

A Toast. Given at a Meeting of the 
Dumfries-shire Volunteers 

Lines said to have been written, by Burns, 
while on his Death-bed, to John Rankine 

Verses addressed to J. Rankine .... 

On seeing the beautiful seat of Lord 
Galloway 

(3n the Same 

On the Same 

To the Same, on the Author being threat- 
ened with his Resentment 

Verses tb J. Rankine ....... 

Extemporaneous Effusion, on beiiig ap- 
pointed to the Excise 

On hearing that there was Falsehood in 
the Rev. Dr. B 's very Looks . . 

Poverty • • 

On a Schoolmaster in Cleish Parish . . 

Lines written and presented to Mrs. 
Kemble 

Lines written on a Window at the King's 
Arms Tavern, Dumfries 

Lines written on the Windowo I the Globe 
Tavern, Dumfries . . •: 

Extempore in the Court of Session • • . • 

Lines written under the Picture of Miss 
}3urns ............ 

On Miss J. Scott, of Ayr 

Epigram on Captain Francis Grose ^ . . 

Epigram on Elphinstone's Translation of 
Martial's Epigrams 

Epitaph on a Coimtry Laird 

Epitaph on a noisy Polemic ..... 

Epitaph on Wee Johnny . . ... 

Epitaph on a celebrated ruling Elder . . 

Epitaph for Robert Aiken, Esq 

Epitaph for Gavin Hamilton, Esq. . . . 

A Bard's Epitaph ... ..... 

Epitaph on my Father . 

Epitaph on John Dove . 

Epitaph on John Bushby 

Epitaph on a Wag in Mauchline . • . 

Epitaph on a Person nicknamed 'The 
Marquis' 

Epitaph on Walter S— ^" ...... 

On Himself 

Grace before Meat 

On Commissary Goldie's Brains .... 

Impromptu 

Addressed to a Lady whom the Author 
feared he had offended 

Epigram 



Page 
i66 

167 

ib. 
ib. 
ib. 
ib. 

i68 



ib. 

ib. 

ib. 

169 
ib. 

ib. 
ib. 
ib. 

ib. 
170 

ib. 

ib. 
ib. 
ib. 

17 r 
ib. 

ib. 
ib. 

172 
ib. 
ib. 

ib. 
ib. 

m 

lb. 
ib. 
ib.. 
ib. 
ib. 

'/*♦ 

ib. 
ib. 

175 
ib. 
ib. 
ib. 
ib. 
ib. 

ib. 
176 



Page 

Lines inscribed on a Platter 176 

To il>- 

On Mr. M'Murdo ib. 

To a Lady who was looking up the Text 

during Sermon ... ib. 

Impromptu ib. 

To 177 

To a Painter ib. 

Lines written on a Tumbler ib. 

On Mr. W. Cruikshank, of the High 

School, Edinburgh ib. 

SONGS. 

The Lass o' Ballochmyle 178 

Song of Death ib. 

My ain kind Dearie O 179 

Auld Rob Morris ib. 

Naebody 180 

My Wife's a winsome wee Thing . . . ib. 

Duncan Gray : ib. 

O Poortith ib. 

Galla Water i8i 

Lord Grf'gory ib. 

Open the Door to Me, oh ! . . . . . ib. 

Meg o' the Mill 182 

Jessie . . ib. 

Wandering Willie . 183 

Logan Braes ib. 

There was a Lass . 184 

Phillis the Fair ib. 

By Allan Stream ......... ib. 

Had I a Cave 185 

Whistle, and I'll come to you, my Lad . ib. 

Husband, Husband, cease your Strife . 186. 

Deluded Swain • • • ^^^ 

Song ib. 

Wilt thou be my Dearie ? ib. 

Banks of Cree 187 

On the Seas and far away ib. 

Hark ! the Mavis ib. 

She says she lo'es me best of a' .... 188 

How lang and dreary ib. 

The Lover's Morning Salute to his Mistress ib. 

Lassie wi' the lint-white Locks .... 189 

The Auld Man . . , ib. 

Farewell, thou Stream ib. 

Contented wi' little . 190 

My Nannie's awa' ib. 

Sweet fa's the Eve 191 

Lassie, art thou sleeping yet ? ... ib. 

Song ib. 

'Twras na her bonie blue Ee ..... . 192 

Address to the Woodlark ib. 

How cruel are the Parents. ..... ib. 

Mark yonder Pomp 193 

1 see a Form, I see a Face ...... ib. 

O bonie was yon rosy Brier ..... ib. 

Forlorn, my Love ib. 

Last May a braw Wooer 194 

Hey for .1 Lass wi' a Tocher . . . . . 195 

Altho' thou maun never be mine , . . . ib. 

The Birks of Aberfeldy 196 

The young Highland Rover ib. 

Stay, my Charmer 197 

Full well thou know'st ib. 

Strathallan's Lament • • ib. 



Iviii 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Raving Winds around her blowing . . . 197 

Musing on the roaring Ocean .... H>. 

Blithe was she 198 

Peggy's Charms il). 

The lazy Mist - ib. 

A Rose-bud by my early Walk .... 199 

Tibbie, I h£.e seen the Day » . . . . z/\ 

I love my Jean z'd. 

O, were I on Parnassus* Hill' 200 

The blissful Day ib. 

The Braes o' Ballochmyle z'b. 

The happy Trio ib. 

The blue-eyed Lassie ....... 201 

John Anderson my Jo ib. 

Tam Glen . ib. 

Gane is the Day ib. 

My Tocher's the Jewel 202 

What can a young Lassie do wi' an Old 

Man? ib. 

O, for ane and twenty, Tam ! 203 

The bonie wee Thing ib. 

The Banks of Nith ._ ib. 

Bessy and her Spinnin Wheel .... ib. 

Country Lassie 204 

Fair Eliza ib. 

She's fair and fause ib. 

The Posie 205 

The Banks o' Doon 206 

Version printed in the Musical Museum . ib. 

Gloomy December ib. 

Behold the Hour . . .' . .... . . 207 

Willie's Wife ib. 

Afton Water ib. 

Louis, what reck I by thee ? 208 

Bonie Bell - . ib. 

For the sake of Somebody //'. 

May, thy Mom ib. 

The lovely Lass "of Inverness ib. 

A red, red Rose 2c« 

O, wat ye wha's in yon Town ? . . . . ib. 

A Vision ib. 

O, wert thou in the cauld blast .... 210 

The Highland Lassie . • . • , • • • • i^- 

Jockey's ta'en the parting Kiss . ; . , . ib. 

Peggy's Charms ,'...,.... 211 

Up in the Morning early . j . . . . ib. 

Tho' cruel Fate ib. 

1 dream'd I lay where iFIowers were 
springing ib. 

Bonie Ann ib. 

My bonie Mary 212 

My Heart's in the Highlands. .... ib. 

There's a Youth in this City ..... ib. 

The rantin Dog the Daddie o't . . . . 213 

I do confess thflu art sae fair ib. 

Yon wild mossy Mouiitains ib. 

Wha is that at my Bower Door? . . . 214 

Farewell to Nancy ib. 

The bonie Blink o' Mary's Ee . . . . ib. 

Out over the Forth . • . ib. 

The bonie Lad that's far away .... ib. 

The gowden Locks of Anna 215 

Banks of Devon . . • ib. 

Adown winding Nith '216 

Streams that glide ib. 

The De'il's awa' wi' the Exciseman . . . ib. 



/'age 

Blithe hae I been on yon Hill .... 217 

O were my Love yon Lilac fair .... ib. 

Come, let me take thee ib. 

Where are the Joys ib. 

O saw ye my Dear 218 

Thou hast left me ever, Jamie .... ib. 

My Chloris ib. 

Charming Month of May 216 

Let not Woman e'er complain .... ib. 

O Philly ' ib. 

John Barleycorn 220 

Canst thou leave me thus ? 221 

On Chloris behig ill i4 

When Guilford good our Pilot stood . . ib. 

The Rigs o' Barley 222 

Farewell to Eliza . ib. 

My Nanie, O 223 

Green grow the Rashes ib. 

Now westlin Winds ........ ib. 

The big-bellied Bottle 224 

The Author's Farewell to his native 

Country •, • '. • 225 

The Farewell ib. 

And maun I still on Menie doat .... ib. 

Highland Maiy 226 

Auld Lang Syne , ib. 

Bannockbum 227 

The gallant Weaver . '. ib. 

Song .....'.■ ib. 

For a' that and a' that ib. 

Dainty Davie 228 

To Mr. Cunningham ib. 

Clarindaf 229 

Why, why tell thy Lover ib. 

Caledonia , ib. 

On the Battle of Sheriff-Muir .... 230 

The Dumfries Volunteers ...... 231 

O wha is she that lo'es me? ib. 

Captain Grose. 232 

Whistle owre the Lave o't ib. 

O, once I lov'd a bonie Lass ib. 

Young Jockey 233 

M'Pherson's Farewell ib. 

The Dean of Faculty ib. 

I'll ay ca' in by yon Town 234 

A Bottle and a Friend ib. 

I'll kiss thee yet . . .• ib. 

On Cessnock Banks ib. 

Prayer for Mary ......... 235 

Young Peggy ib. 

There'll never be Peace till Jamie comes 

hame 236 

There was a Lad ib. 

To Mary . f t'^. 

Mary Morison 237 

The Soger's Return ib. 

My Father was a Farmer 238 

A Mother's Lament for the Death of her 

Son 239 

Bonie Lesley i^- 

Amang the Trees ib. 

When first I came to Stewart Kyle . . ib. 

On Sensibility ib. 

Montgomerie's Peggy 240 

On a Bank of Flowers . ib. 

O raging Fortune's withering Blast . . ib. 



CONTENTS. 



lix 



Page 

Evan Banks 240 

Women's Minds 241 

To Mary in Heaven ib. 

To Mary ■ 242. 

O leave Novels , ib. 

Address to General Dumourier .... ib. 

Sweetest May . . ib. 

One Night as I did wander ib. 

The Winter it is past 243 

Fragment ib. 

The Chevalier's Lament ,.%,.. ib. 

1'he Belles of Mauchline ....... ib. 

The Tarbolton Lasses ........ 244 

The Tarbolton Lasses ib. 

Here's a Health to them that's awa . . 245 

I'm owre young to marry yet 246 

Damon and Sylvia ib. 

My Lady's Gown there's Gairs upon't . ib. 

Oay my Wife she dang me ..... 247 

The Banks of Nith . ........ ib. 

Bonie Peg i . . . ib. 

O lay thy Loof in mine, Lass .... ib. 

O guid Ale comes » ib, 

O why the Deuce ib. 

Polly Stewart .-..'. 248 

Robhi shure in hairst^ ib. 

The five Carlins . .* . ' ib. 

The Deuk's dang o'er my Daddie . . . 249 

I'he Lass that made the Bed to me. . . ib. 

U'he Union . . . » 250 

There was a bonie Lass ib. 

My Harry was a Gallant gay .... 251 

Tibbie Dunbar ib. 

Wee Willie ib. 

Craigie-burn-wood ......... ib. 

Here's his Health in Water 252 

As down the Burn they, took their Way . ib. 

Lady Onlie ib. 

As I was a wandering ib. 

Bannocks o' Barley 253 

Our Thrissles flourished fresh and fair . ib. 

Peg-a- Ramsey ib. 

Come boat me o'er to Charlie .... ib. 

Braw Lads of Galla Water 254 

Coming through the Rye ib. 

The Lass of Ecclefechan ib. 

The Slave's Lament 255 

Had I the Wyte ib. 

Hee Balou ib. 

Her Daddie forbad ib. 

Here's to thy Health, my bohie Lass . . 256 

Hey, the dusty Miller ib. 

The Gardin' o't ib. 

The joyful Widower ib. 

Theniel Menzle's bonie Mary .... 257 

The Farewell ib. 

It is na, Jean, thy bonie Face .... ib. 

Jamie, come try me . 258 

Landlady, count the Lawin ib. , 



Pag» 

My Love she's l)ut a Lassie yet .... 258 

My Heart was ance x'A. 

Lovely Davies . . * 250 

Kenmure's on and awa it/. 

The Captain's Lady ........ ib. 

Lady Mary Ann . 260 

The Highland Widow's Lament . . . ib. 

Merry hae I been teethin' a Heckle . . /'& 

Rattlin', roarin' Willie 261 

O Mally's nieek, Mally's sweet . ». . . ib. 

Sae far awa -tbz 

O steer her up / ib. 

O, whar did ye get ib. 

The Fete Champetre ib. 

Simmer's a pleasant Time 263 

The blude red Rose at Yule may "blaw . ib. 

The Highland Laddie ....... 264 

The Cooper o' Cuddie ....... ib., 

Nithsdale's welcome Hame 265 

The Tailor ........... ib. 

1'he tither Morn ib. 

The Carle of Kellyburn Braes .... 266 

There was a Lass i . 267 

The weary Pund o' Tow ...... 268 

1'he Ploughman ....,..«. ib. 

The Carles of Dysart ....",,.. ib. 

Weary fa' you, Duncan Gray .... 269 

My Hoggie ib. 

Where hae ye been ib. 

Cock up your Beaver ib. 

The Heron Ballads. First Ballad . . . ib. 

1'he Election. Second Ballad .... 270 

An excellent new Song. Ihird Ballad . 271 

John Bushby's Lamentation 272 

Ye Sons.of Old Killie ....... 273 

Ye Jacobites by name ....... ib. 

Song — Ah, Chloris ........ 274 

Whan I sleep I dream ib. 

Katharine Jaffray ib. 

The Collier Laddie ib. 

Whin I think on the happy Days . . . ib. 

Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain . . . 275 

The Heather was blooming ib. 

Wae is my Heart ib. 

EppieM'Nab 276 

An, O ! my Eppie ib. 

Gudeen to you, Kimmer ..;,.. ib. 

O that I had ne'er been married .... 277 

There's News, Lasses ib. 

Scroggam ib, 

Frae the Friends and Land I love . . . ib. 

The Laddies by the Banks o' Nith . ". ib. 

The bonie Lass of Albany 278 

Song ...« w. 

Appendix : — 

Elegy 280 

Extempore. To Mr. Gavin Hamilton ib. 

Versicles on Sign-posts sSx 



POEMS. 

THE TWA DOGS. 

A TALE 

*TwAS in that place o' Scotland's isle, 
That bears the name o' Auld King Coil, 
Upon a bonie day in June, 
When wearing thro' the afternoon, 
Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame, 
Forgather'd ance upon a time. 

The first I'll name, they ca'd him Caesar, 
Was keepit for his Honour's pleasure : 
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs, 
Shew'd he was nane o* Scotland's dogs ; 
But whalpit some place far abroad, 
Whare sailors gang to fish for Cod. 

His locked, letter' d, braw brass collar, 
Shew'd him the gentleman and scholar ; 
But tho' he was o' high degree. 
The fient a pride — nae pride had he ; 
But wad hae spent an hour caressin, 
Ev'n wi' a tinkler-gipsey's messin. 
At kirk or market, mill of smiddie, 
Nae tawtqd tyke, tho' e'er sae duddie. 
But he wad stan't, as glad to see him, 
An' stroan't on stanes and hillocks wi' him. 

The tither was a ploughman's collie, 
A rhyming, ranting, raving billie, 
Wha for his friend and comrade had him, 
An' in his freaks had Luath ca'd him. 
After some dog in Highland sang, 
Was made lang syne, — Lord knows how lang. 

He was a gash an' faithfu' tyke. 
As ever lap a sheugh or dike. 
His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face, 
Ay gat him friends in ilka place ; 
His breast was white, his touzie back 
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black ; 
His gawcie tail, wi' upwat'd curl. 
Hung owre his hurdies wi' a swirl. 



TBE TWA DOGS. 



Nae doubt but they were fain p' ither, 
An' unco pack an' thick thegither ; 
Wi' social nose whyles snuflf'd and snowkit ; 
Whyles mice and moudieworts they howkit ; 
"Whyles scour'd awa in lang excursion, 
An' worry'd ither in diversion ; 
Until wi' daffin weary grown, 
Upon a knowe they sat them down, 
An' there began a lang digression 
About the lords o' the creation. 

CiESAR. 

I've aften wonder'd, honest Luath, 
"What sort o* life poor dogs like you have ; 
An' when the gentry's life I saw, 
"What way poor bodies liv'd ava. 

Our Laird gets in his racked rents, 
His coals, his kain, an' a' his stents : 
He rises when he likes himsel ; 
His flunkies answer at the bell ; 
He ca's his coach ; he ca's his horse ; 
He draws a bonie, silken purse 
As lang's my tail, whare thro' the steeks, 
The yellow letter'd Geordie keeks. 

Frae morn to e'en, it's nought but toiling. 
At baking, roasting, frying, boiling ; 
An' tho' the gentry first are stechin, 
"Vet ev'n the ha' folk fill their pechan, 
Wi' sauce, ragouts, and such like trashtrie, 
That's little short o' downright wastrie. 
Our Whipper-in, wee blastit wonner, 
Poor worthless elf, it eats a dinner, 
Better than ony tenant man 
His Honour has in a' the Ian : 
An* what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, 
I own it's past my comprehension. 

LUATH. 

Trowth, Caesar, whyles they're fash't eneugh 
A cotter howkin in a sheugh, 
"Wi' dirty stanes biggin a dyke. 
Baring a quarry, and siclike, 
Himsel, a wife, he thus sustains, 
A smytrie o' wee duddie weans. 
An' nought but his han' darg, to keep 
Them right an' tight in thack an' rape. 

An' when they meet wi' sair disasters, 
Like loss o' health, or want o' masters. 
Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer, 
An' they maun starve o' cauld and hunger ; 



TH^ TWA DOGS. 



But, how it comes, I never Icend yet, 
They're maistly wonderfu' contented j 
An' buirdly chiels, an' clever hizzies. 
Are bred in sic a way as this is. 

C^SAR. 

But then to see how ye're negleckit, 
How huff 'd, an' cuff 'd, an' disrespeckit 1 
Lord, man, our gentry care as httle 
For delvers, ditchers, an' sic cattle, 
They gang as saucy by poor folk. 
As I wad by a stinking brock. 

I've notic'd, on our Laird's court-day, 
An' mony a time my heart's been wae. 
Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash. 
How they maun thole a factor's snash : 
He'll stamp an' threaten, curse an* swear. 
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear ; 
While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, 
An' hear it a', an' fear an' tremble ! 

I see how folk live that hae riches ; 
But surely poor folk maun be wretches. 

LUATH. 

They're no sae wretched's ane wad think 
Tho' constantly on poortith's brink : 
They're sae accustom'd wi' the sight, 
The view o't gies them little fright. 

Then chance an' fortune are sae guided, 
They're ay in less or mair provided ; 
An' tho' fatigu'd wi' close employment, 
A blink o' rest's a sweet enjoyment. 

The dearest comfort o' their lives. 
Their grushie weans an' faithfu' wives : 
The prattling things are just their pride, 
That sweetens a' their fire-side. 

An' whyles twalpennie worth o' nappy 
Can mak the bodies unco happy ; 
They lay aside their private cares. 
To mind the Kirk and State affairs ; 
They'll talk o' patronage an' priests, 
Wi' kindling fury i' their breasts, 
Or tell what new taxation's comin. 
An' ferlie at the folk in Lon'on. 

As bleak-fac'd Hallowmass returns, 
They get the jovial, ranting kirns, 
When rural life, o' ev'ry station, 
Unite in common recreation ; 
Love blinks, Wit slaps, an' social Mirtb 
Forgets there's Care upo' the earth. 



THE TWA DOGS. 



That merry day the year begins, 
They bar the door on frosty winds; 
The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream, 
An' sheds a heart-inspiring steam ; 
The luntin pipe, an' sneeshin mill, 
Are handed round wi' right guid will j 
The cantie auld folks crackin crouse, 
The young anes ranting thro' the house, — 
My heart has been sae fain to see them. 
That I for joy hae barket wi' them. 

Still its owre true that ye hae said, 
Sic game is now owre aften play'd. 
There's monie a creditable stock 
O' decent, honest, fawsont folk. 
Are riven out baith root an' branch, 
Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench, 
Wha thinks to knit hinisel the faster 
In favour wi' some gentle- Master, 
Wha, aiblins, thrang a parliamentin. 
For Britain's guid his saul indentin — 

CiESARi 

Haith, lad, ye little ken about it ; 
For Britain's guid ! guid faith ! I doubt it. 
Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him. 
An* saying aye or nds they bid him : 
At operas an' plays parading, 
Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading; 
Or maybe, in a frolic daft, 
To Hague or Calais taks a waft. 
To make a tour, an' tak a whirl. 
To learn bon ton an' see the worl'. 

There, at Vienna or Versailles, 
He rives his father's auld entails ; 
Or by Madrid he taks the rout, 
To thrum guitars, an' fecht wi' nowt ; 
Or down Italian vista startles, 
Whore-hunting amang groves o' myrtles : 
Then bouses drumly German water, 
To mak himsel look fair and fatter, 
An* clear the consequential sorrows, 
Love-gifts of Carnival Signoras. 
For Britain's guid | for her destruction J 
Wi' dissipation, feud, an' faction ! 

LUATH. 

Hech, man ! dear sirs ! is that the gate 
They waste sae mony a braw estate ? 
Aie we sae foughten an' harass'd 
For gear to gang that gate at last ? 



THE TWA DOGS. 



O would they stay aback frae courts, 
An' please themsels wi' couptra sports, 
It wad for ev'ry ane be better, 
The Laird, the Tenant, an' the Cotter ! 
For thae frank, rantin, ramblin billies, 
Fient haet o' them's ill-hearted fellows ; 
Except for breaking o' their timmer, 
Ox speaking lightly o' their limmer, 
Or shootin o' a hare or moor-cock, 
The ne'er-a-bit they're ill to poor folk. 

But will ye tfell me, Master Csesar, 
Sure great folk's life's a life o' pleasure ? 
Nae cauld nor hunger e'er can steer them, 
The vera thought o't need na fear them. 

C^SAR. 

Lord, man, were ye but whyles whare I am, 
The gentles ye wad ne'er envy 'em. - 

It's true, they need na starve or sweat. 
Thro' winter's cauld, or simmer's heat ; 
They've nae sair wark to craze their banes, 
An' fill auld age wi' grips an' granes : 
But human bodies are sic fools. 
For a' their colleges and schools. 
That when nae real ills perplex them, 
They mak enow themsels to vex them ; 
An' ay the less they hae to sturt them. 
In like proportion, less will hurt them. 

A country fellow at the pleugh. 
His acre's till'd, he's right eneugh ; 
A country girl at her wheel. 
Her dizzen^ done, she's unco weel : 
But Gentlemen, an' Ladies warst, 
Wi' ev'n down want o' wark are curst. 
They loiter, lounging, lank, an' lazy ; 
Tho' deil haet ails them, yet uneasy : 
Their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless ; 
Their nights unquiet, lang, an' restless ; 

An' ev'n their sports, their balls an' races, 
Their galloping thro' public places, 
There's sic parade, sic pomp, an' art,^ 
The joy can scarcely reach the heart. 

The men cast out in party-matches. 
Then sowther a' in deep debauches. 
Ae night, they're mad wi' drink an* whoring, 
Niest day their life is past enduring. 
The Ladies nrm-in-arm in clusters. 
As great an' gracious a' as sisters ; 
But hear their absent thoughts o' ither. 
They're a' run deils an' jads thegither. 



SCOTCH DRIhTK. 



Whyles, owre the wee bit cup an' platie, 
They sip the scandal potion pretty ; 
Or lee-lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks. 
Pore ower the devil's pictur'd beuks ; 
Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard. 
An' cheat like ony unhang'd blackguard. 

There's some exceptions, man an' woman ; 
But this is Gentry's life in common. 

By this, the sun was out 6* sight, 
An' darker gloamin brought the night : 
The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone, 
The kye stood rowtin i' the loan ; 
When up they gat, an' shook their lug^ 
Rejoic'd they were na vien but dogs ; 
An' each took aff his several way, 
Resolv'd to meet some ither day. 



SCOTCH DRINK. 

Gte him. strong drink, until Jie wink ^ 

That''s sinking in despair; 
An' liquor guid to fire his bluid. 

That's prest -wi grief ait! care ; 
There let him house, ai^ deep carouse, 

WV bumpers flowing o'er. 
Till he forgets his loves or debts, 

A ft' minds his griefs no more. 

Solomon's Proverbs, xxxi. 6, 7. 

Let other Poets raise a fracas 

'Bout vines, an' wines, an' drunken Bacchus, 

An' crabbit names an' stories wrack us, 

An' grate our lug, 
I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us. 

In glass or jug. 

O thou, my Muse ! guid auld Scotch Drinlc, 
Whether thro' wimplin worms thou jink, 
Or, richly brown, ream owre the brink. 

In glorious faem. 
Inspire me, till I lisp an' wink. 

To sing thy name ! 



Let husky Wheat the haughs adorn. 
An' Aits set up their awnie horn. 
An' Pease an' Beans at een or morn. 

Perfume the plain, 
Leeze me on thee, John Barleycorn, 

Thou King o' grain » 



SCOTCH DRINK. 



On thee aft Scotland chows her cood, 
In sbuple scones, the wale o' food ! 
Or tumblyi in the boiling flood 

Wi' kail an' beef ; 
But when thou pours thy strong heart's blood, 

There thou shines Chief. 

Food fills the wame, an' keeps us livin ; 
Tho' life's a gift no worth receivin, 
When heavy-dragg'd wi' pine an' grievin ; 

But oil'd by thee, 
Jhe wheels o' life gae down-hill, scrievin, 

Wi' rattlin glee. 



Thou clears the head o' doited Lear : 
Thou cheers the heart o' drooping Care ; 
Thou strings the nerves o' Labour sair, 

At 's weary toil : 
Thou even brightens dark Despair 

Wi' gloomy smile. 



Aft, clad in massy, siller weed, 
Wi' Gentles thou erects thy head ; 
Yet humbly kind, in time o' need, 

The poor man's wine, 
His wee drap parritch, or his bread, 

Thou kitchens fine. 



Thou art the life o' public haunts ; 

But thee, what were our fairs and rants ? 

Ev'n godly meetings o' the saunts, 

By thee inspir'd. 
When gaping they besiege the tents, 

Are doubly fir'd. 

That merry night we get the corn in i 
O sweetly, then, thou reams the horn in I 
Or reekin on a New-Year mornin 

In cog or bicker, 
An' just a wee drap sp'ritual burn in. 

An' gusty sucker ! 

When Vulcan gies his bellows breath. 
An' ploughmen gather wi' their graith, 
O rare ! to see thee fizz an'.freath 

I' th' lugget caup ! 
Then Bumewin comes on like Death 

At cv'ry chauw. 



SCOTCH DRINK. 



Nae mercy, then, for airn or steel ; 
The brawnie, banie, ploughman chiel, 
Brings hard owrehip, wi' sturdy wheel, 

The strong forehammer, 
Till block an' studdie ring an' reel 

Wi' dinsome clamour. 



When skirlin weanies see the light, 
Thou maks the gossips clatter bright, 
How fumblin' cuife their dearies slight, 

Wae worth the name ! 
Nae Howdie gets a social night, 

Or plack frae them. 



When neebors anger at a plea. 
An' just as wud as wud can be, 
How easy can the barley-bree 

Cement the quarrel ! 
It's aye the cheapest Lawyer's fee, 

To taste the barrel. 



Alake ! that e'er my Muse has reason 
To wyte her countrymen wi' treason ! 
But monie daily weet their weason 

Wi' liquors nice, 
An' hardly, in a winter's season, 

E'er spier her price. 

Wae worth that brandy, burning trash ! 
Fell source o' monie a pain an' brash ! 
Twins monie a poor, doylt, druken hash, 

O' half his days ; 
An* sends, beside, auld Scotland's cash 

To her warst faes. 

Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well, 
Ye chief, to you my tale I tell, 
Poor plackless devils like mysel' 

It sets you ill, 
Wi' bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell. 

Or foreign gill. 

May gravels round his blather wrench, 
An' gouts torment him, inch by inch, 
Wha twists his gruntle wi' a glunch 

O' sour disdain. 
Out owre a glass o' Whisky punch 

Wi' honest men ! 



THE AUTHOR'S EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER. 

O Whisky ! soul o' plays an' pranks ! 
Accept a Bardie's gratefu' thanks ! 
When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks 

Are my poor verses ! 
Thou comes they rattle i' their ranks 

At ither's a— s ! 



Thee, Ferintosh ! O sadly lost ! 
Scotland, lament frae coast to coast \ 
Now colic-gri^s, an' barkin hoast, 

May kill us a' ; 
For loyal Forbes' charter'd boast 

Is ta'en awa ! 



Thae curst horse-leeches o' th' Excise, 
Wha mak the Whisky Stells their prize ! 
Haud up thy han,' Deil ! ance, twice, thrice ! 

There, seize the blinkers ! 
Ah' bake them up in brunstane pies 

For poor damn'd drinkers. 

Fortune ! ff thou '11 but gie me still 
Hale breeks, a scone, an' Whisky gill, 
An* rowth o' rhyme to rave at will, 

Tak' a' the rest. 
An' deal't about as thy blind skill 

Directs thee best. 



THE AUTHOR'S EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER. 

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND HONOURABLE THE SCOTCH REPRESENTATIVES IN THE 

HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

Dearest of Distillation I last and best-^ 

^——How art thou lost ! 

Parody on Milton. 

Ye Irish Lords, ye Knights an' Squires, 
Wha represent our brughs an' shires. 
An' doucely manage our affairs 

In Parliament, 
To you a simple Bardie's prayers 

Are humbly sent. 

Alas ! my roupet Muse is hearse ; 

Your Honours' heart wi' grief 'twad pierce, 

To see her sitten on her a — 

Low i' the dust. 
An' scriechin out prosaic verse, 

An' like to brust J 



10 THE A UTHOR 'S EARNEST 

Tell them wha hae the chief direction, 
Scotland an' me's in great affliction. 
E'er sin' they laid that curst restriction 

On Aquavitae ; 
An* rouse them up to strong conviction, 

An' move their pity. 

Stand forth, an* tell yon Premier Youth, 

The honest, open, naked truth : 

Tell him o* mme an' Scotland's drouth, 

His servants humble : 
The muckle devil blaw ye south, 

If ye dissemble ! 

Does ony great man glunch an* gloom ? 
Speak out, an' never fash your thumb ! 
Let posts an' pensions sink or soom 

Wi' them wha grant *em 
If honestly they canna come. 

Far better want *em. 

In gatVrln votes you were na slack ; 
Now stand as tightly by your tack ; 
Ne'er claw your lug, an' fidge your back, 

An' hum ah' haw ; 
But raise your arm, an' tell your crack 

Before them a'. 

Paint Scotland greetin owre her thrissle ; 
Her mutchkin stoup as toom's a whissle : 
An' damn'd Excisemen in a bussle. 

Seizin a Stell, 
Triumphant crushin't like a mussel 

Or lampit shell. 

Then on the tither hand present her, 

A blackguard Smuggler, right behint her. 

An' cheek-for-chow, a chuffie Vintner, 

CoUeaguing join. 
Picking her pouch as bare as Winter 

Of a' kind coin. 

Is there, that bears the name o' Scot, 
But feels his heart's bluid rising hot. 
To see his poor auld Mither's pot 

Thus dung in staves. 
An* plundei-'d o' her hindmost groat 

By gallows knaves ? 

Alas ! I*m but a nameless wight, 
Trode i' the mire out o' sight i 



CR Y AND PR A VER. 1 1 



But could I like Montgomeries fight, 

Or gib like Boswell, 

There's some sark-necks I wad draw tight, 
An' tie some hose well. 

God bless your Honours, can ye see't, 
The kind, auld, cantie Carlin greet, 
An' no get warmly to your feet. 

An' gar them hear it ? 
An' tell them, wi* a patriot-heat, 

Ye winna bear it ! 

Some o' you nicely ken the laws, 
To round the period an' pause. 
An' with rhetoric clause on clause 

To mak harangues ; 
Then echo thro' Saint Stephen's wa's 

Auld Scotland's wrangs. 

Dempster, a true blue Scot I'se warran ; 
Thee, aith-detesting, chaste Kilkerran ; 
An' that glib-gabbet Highland Baron, 

The Laird o' Graham ; 
An* ane, a chap that's damn'd auldfarfan, 

Dundas his name. 

Erskine, a spunkie Norland billie ; 
True Campbells, Frederick an' Hay ; 
An' Livingstone, the bauld Sir Willie ; 

An' monie ithers, 
"Whom auld Demosthenes or Tuliy 

Might own for brithers. 

Arouse, my boys ! exert your mettle, 
To get auld Scotland back her kettle ; 
Or faith ! I'll wad my new pleugh-pettle, 

Ye'll see't or lang. 
She'll teach you, wi^ a reekin whittle, 

Anither sang. 

This while she's been in crankous mood, 
Her lost Militia fir'd her bluid ; 
(Deil na they never mair do guid, 

Play'd her that pliskie !) 
An* now she's like to rin red-wud 

About her Whisky. 

An' Lord, if ance they pit her till't, 
Her tartan petticoat she'll kilt, 
An' durk an' pistol at her belt, 

'She'll tak the streets, 
An' rin her whittle to the hilt, 

U th' first she meets ! 



1 2 THE A UTHOR 'S EARNES T 



For God sake, Sirs ! then speak her faif, 
An* straik her cannie wi' the hair, 
An' to the muckle house repair, 

Wi' instant speed, 
An' strive, wi' a' your wit and lear, 

To get remead. 

Yon ill tongu'd tinkler, Charlie P'ox, 
May taunt you wi' his jeers an' mocks ; 
But gie him't het, my hearty cocks ! 

E'en cowe the cadie ! 
An* send him to his dicing-box 

An' sportin lady. 

Tell yon guid bluid o' auld Boconnock's 

I'll be his debt twa mashlum bonnocks, 

An' drink Kis health in auld Nanse Tinnock's 

Nine times a-week, 
If he some scheme, like tea arf winnocks, 

Wad kindly seek. 

Could he some commutation broach, 
I'll pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch, 
He need na fear their foul reproach 

Nor erudition. 
Yon mixtie-maxtie queer hotch-potch, 

The Coalition. 

Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue ; 
She's just a devil wi' a rung ; 
An' if she promise auld or young 

To tak their part. 
The' by the neck she should be strung, 

She'll no desert. 

An' now, ye chosen Five-and-Forty, 
May still your Mither's heart support ye ; 
Then, though a Minister grow dorty. 

An' kick your place, 
Ye'll snap your fingers, poor an' hearty, 

Before his face. 



God bless your Honours a' your days, 
Wi' sowps o' kail an' brats o' claise. 
In spite o' a' the thievish kaes 

That haunt St. Jamie's. 
Your humble Bardie sings an' prays 

While Rab Ijjs name is. 



CRV AND PRAVEk. 13 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Let half-starv'd slaves, in warmer skies. 
See future wines, ricfi-clust'ring, rise ; 
Their lot auld Scotland ne'er envies, 

But biythe an' frisky, 
She eyes her free born, martial boys, 

Tak aff their Whisky. 

What tho' their Phoebus kinder warms, 
While fragrance blooms an' beauty charms J 
When wretches range, in famish'd swarms, 

The scented groves, 
Or hounded forth, dishonour arms 

In hungry droves. 

Their gun*s a burden on thehr shouther; 
They downa bide the stink o' powther ; 
Their bauldest thought's a hank'ring s wither 

To Stan' or rin. 
Till skelp — a shot — they're aff, a' throwther. 

To save their skin. 

But bring a Scotsman frae his hill, 
Clap in his cheek a Highland gill. 
Say, such is royal George's will. 

An' there's the foe, 
He has nae thought but how to kill 

Twa at a blow. 

Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him \ 
Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him ; 
Wi' bluidy han' a welcome gies him ; 

An' when he fa's, 
His latest draught o' breathin lea'es him 

In faint huzzas. 

Sages their solemn een may steek, 
An' raise a philosophic reek. 
An* physically causes seek. 

In clime an' season ; 
But tell me Whisky's name in Greek, 

I'll tell the reason. 

Scotland, my auld, respected Mither ! 
Tho' whyles ye moistify your leather, 
Till whare ye sit, on craps o' heather. 

Ye tine your dam ; 
Freedom and Whisky gang thegither ! 

Tak aff your dram ! 



14 THE HOLY FAIR. 



THE HOLY FAIR. 

A robe of seeming truth and trust 

Hid crafty Obsemation ; 
And secret hung, luith poisot^d crusty 

Tlie dirk of Defatnation : 
A mask that like the gorget shov/d, 

Dye-varying on the pigeon; 
And for a mantle large and broad. 

He wrapt hijn in Religion. 

Hypocrisy A-la-mode. 

Upon a simmer Sunday mom, 

When Nature's face is fair, 
I walked forth to view the corn, 

An' snuff the caller air. 
The risin' sun, owre Galston muirs, 

Wi' glorious light was glintin ; 
The hares were hirplin down the furrs, 

The lav'rocks they were chantin 

Fu' sweet that day. 

As lightsomely I glowr'd abroad, 

To see a scene sae gay, 
Three Hizzies, early at the road. 

Cam skelpin up the way. 
Twa had manteeles o' dolefu' black, 

But ane wi' lyart lining ; 
The third, that gaed a wee a-back. 

Was in the fashion shining 

Fu' gay that day. 

The twa appear'd like sisters twin, 

in feature, form, an' claes ; 
Their visage wither'd, lang an* thin, 

An' sour as ony slaes : 
The third cam up, hap-step-an'-lowp. 

As light as ony lambie. 
An' wi' a curchie low did stoop, 

As soon as e'er she saw me, 

Fu' kind that day. 

Wi' bonnet aff, quoth I, * Sweet lass, 

I think ye seem to ken me ; 
I'm sure I've seen that bonie face. 

But yet I canna name ye.' 
Quo' she, an' laughin' as she spak. 

An' taks me by the ban's, 
* Ye, for my sake, hae gi'en the feck 

Of a' the ten comman's 

A screed some day. 



THE HOLY FAIR. 15 



* My name is Fun — your cronie dear, 

The nearest friend ye hae , 
An' this is Superstition here, 

An' that's Hypocrisy. 
I'm gaun to Mauchline Holy Fair, 

To spend an hour in daffin : 
Gin ye'll go there, yon runkl'd pair, 

We will get famous laughin 

At them this day.* 



Quoth I, * With a' my heart, I'll do't ; 

I'll get my Sunday's sark on, 
An' meet you on the holy spot ; 

Faith, we'se hae fine remarkin ! * 
Then I gaed hame at crowdie-tim^ 

An' soon I made me ready ; 
For roads were clad, frae side to side, 

Wi' monie a wearie bodie, 

In droves that day. 

Here, farmers gash, in ridin graith 

Gaed hoddin by their cotters , 
There, swankies young, in braw braid-claith, 

Are springin owre the gutters. 
The lasses, skelpin barefit, thrang, 

In silks an' scarlets glitter ; 
Wi' sweet-milk cheese, in monie a whang, 

An' farls, bak'd wi' butter, 

Fu' crump that day. 

When by the plate we set our nose, 

Weel heaped up wi' ha pence, 
A greedy glowr Black Bonnet throws, 

An' we maun draw our tippence. 
Then in we go to see the show. 

On ev'ry side they're gath'rin, 
Some carryin dails, some chairs an' stools, 

An' some are busy bleth'rin 

Right loud that day. 

Here stands a shed to fend the show'rs. 

An' screen our countra gentry ; 
There, racer Jess, an' twa-three whores, 

Are blinkin at the entry. 
Here sits a raw o' tittlin jades, 

Wi' heaving breast an' bare neclc 
An' there, a batch o' wabster-lads", 

Blackguarding frae Kilmarnock 

For fun this day* 



i6 THE HOL Y FAIA'. 



Here, some are thinkin on their sins, 
■ An' some upo' their claes ; 
Ane curses feet that fyl'd his shins, 

Anither sighs an' prays : 
On this hand sits a chosen swatch, 

Wi' screw'd up, grace-proud faces ; 
On that, a set o' chaps, at watch, 
Thrang winkin on the lasses 

To chairs that day. 

O happy is that man an' bltst ! 

Nae wonder that it pride him ! 
Wha's ain dear lass, that he likes best, 

Comes clinkin down beside him ! 
Wi' arm repos'd on the chair-back, 

He sweetly does compose him ; 
Which, by degrees, slips round her neck, 

An's loof upon her bosom 

Unkend that day. 

Now a' the congregation o'er 

Is silent expectation ; 
For Moodie speels the holy door, 

Wi' tidings o' damnation. 
Should Hornie, as in ancient days, 

'Mang sons o' God present him. 
The vera sight o' Moodie's face, 

To's ain het hame had sent him 

Wi' fright that day. 

Hear how he clears the points o' faith 

Wi' rattlin an' wi' thumpin I 
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath, 

He's stampin an' he's jumpin ! 
His lengthen'd chin, his turned-up snout, 

His eldritch squeel an' gestures, 
O how they fire the heart devout, 

Like cantharidian plasters, 

On sic a day I 

But, hark ! the tent has chang'd its voice; 

There's peace an' rest nae langer : 
For a' the real judges rise. 

They canna sit for anger. 
Smith opens out his cauld harangues. 

On practice and on morals ; 
An* aft the godly pour in thrangs. 

To gie the jars an' barrels 

A lift that day. 



WE HOLY FAlk. i1 



What signifies his barren shine 

Of moral pow'rs an' reason ? 
His English style, an' gesture fine, 

Are a' clean out o' season. 
Like Socrates or Antonine, 

Or son\e auld paga:n Heathen, 
The moral man. he does define, 

But ne'er a word o' faith in 

That's right that day. 

In guid time comes an antidote 

Against sic poison'd nostrum ; 
For Peebles, frae the water-fit, 

Ascends the holy rostrum : 
See, up he's got the word .o' God 

An' meek an' mim has view'd it. 
While Common Sense has ta'en the road, 

An' aflF, an' up the Cowgate 

Fast, fast, that day. 

Wee Miller, neist, the Guard relieves, 

An' Orthodoxy raibles, 
Tho' in his heart he weel believes, 

An' thinks it auld wives' fables : 
But, faith ! the birkie wants a Manse, 

So, cannilie he hums them ; 
Altho' his carnal wit an' sense 

Like hafflins-wise o'ercomes him 

At times that day. 

Now, butt an' ben, the Change-house fills, 

Wi' yill-caup Commentators : . 
Here's crying out for bakes an' gills. 

An* there the pint-stowp clatters ; 
While thick an' thrang, an' loud an' laog, 

VVi' logic, an' wi' Scripture, 
They raise a din, that in the end 

Is like to breed a nipture 

O' wrath that day. 

Leeze me on Drink ! it gi'es us mair 

Than either School or College : 
It kindles Wit, it waukens Lair, 

It pangs us fou o' Knowledge. 
Be't whisky gill. Or penny wheep,« 

Or ony stronger potion. 
It never fails, on drinkin' deep, 

To kittle up our notion 

By night or day. 



THE HOLY FA 1^. 



The lads an' lasses, blythely bent 

To mind baith saul an' body, 
Sit round the table, weel content, 

An' steer about the toddy. 
On this ane's dress, an* that ane's leuk, 

They're makin observations ; 
While some are cozie i' the neuk, 

Ad' formin assignations 

To meet some day. 

But now the Lord's ain trumpet touts, 

Till a' the hills are rairin, 
An' echoes back return the shouts ; 

Black Russel is na spairin : 
His piercing words, like Highlan swords. 

Divide the joints an' marrow ; 
His talk o' Hell, whare devils dwell, 

Our vera ' sauls does harrow * 

Wi' fright that day ! 

A vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit, 

Fill'd fou o' lowin brunstane, 
Wha's ragin flame, an' scorchin heat, . 

Wad melt the hardest whun-stane 1 
The half asleep start up wi' fear, 

An' think they hear it roarin, 
When presently it does appear, 

'Twas but some neebor snorin 

Asleep that day. 

*Twad be owre lang a tale to tell 

How monie stories past, 
An how they crowded to the yill, 

When they were a' dismist : 
How drink gaed round, in cogs an' caups, 

Amang the furms and benches ; 
An' cheese an' bread, frae women's laps. 

Was dealt about in lunches, 

An* dawds that day. 

In comes a gaucie, gash Guidwife, 

An' sits down by the fire. 
Syne draws her kebbuck an' her knife ; 

The lasses they are shyer. 
The auld Guidmen, about the grace, 

Frae side to side they bother. 
Till some ane by his bonnet lays, 

An' gi'es them't like a tether, 

Fu' lang that day. 



DEAfH AiVD DOCTOR HORNBOOJC. 1^ 

Waesucks ! for him that gets nae lass, 

Or lasses that hae naething ! 
Sma' need has he to say a grace. 

Or melvie his braw claithing ! 
O Wives, be mindfu', ance yoursel 

How bonie lads ye wanted, 
An' dinna, for a kebbuck-heel, 

Let lasses be affronted 

On sic a day ! 

Now Clinkumbell, wi' rattling tow. 

Begins to jow an' croon ; 
Some swagger hame, the best they dow, 

Some wait the afternoon. 
At slaps the billies halt a blink, 

Till lasses strip their shoon : 
Wi' faith an' hope, an' love an* drink, 

They're a' in famous tune 

For crack that day. 

How monie hearts this day converts 

O' sinners and o' lasses ! 
Their hearts o' stane, gin night, are gane 

As saft as ony flesh is. 
There's some are fou o' love divine, 

There's some are fou b* brandy ; 
An' monie jobs that day begin. 

May end in Houghmagandie 

Some ither day. 



DEATH AND DOCTOR HORNBOOK. 

A TRUE STORY. 

Some books are lies frae end to end. 
And some great lies were never penn'd : 
Ev'n Ministers, they hae been kenn'd, 

In holy rapture, 
A rousing whid, at times, to vend, 

And nail't wi' Scripture. 

But this that I am gaun to tell, 
Which lately on a night befell. 
Is iust as true's the Deil's in hell 

Or Dublin city : 
That e'er he nearer comes oursel 

's a muckle pity. 

C3 



^6 DEAtlt Am DOCTOR HORNBOOK. 



The Clachan yill had made me canty,. 

I wasna fou, but just had plenty ; 

I stacher'd whyles, but yet took tent ay 

To free the ditches ; 
An' hillocks, stanes, an' bushes, kenn'd ay 

Frae ghaists an* witches. 

The rising moon began to glowr 
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre : 
To count her horns, wi' a' my pow'r, 

I set mysel ; 
But whether she had three or four, 

I cou'd na tell. 

I was come round about the hill, 
And todlin down on Willie's mill, 
Setting my staff, wi' a' my skill, 

To keep me sicker ; 
The' leeward whyles, against my will, 

I took a bicker. 

I there wi' Something did forgather, 

That pat me in an eerie swither ; 

An awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther. 

Clear -dangling, hang : 
A three-taed leister on the ither 

Lay, large an' lang. 

Its stature seem'd lang Scotch ells twa. 
The queerest shape that e'er I saw. 
For fient a wame it had ava, 

And then its shanks. 
They were as thin, as sharp an' sma' 

As cheeks o' branks. 

* Guid-een,' quo' I ; ' Friend ! hae ye been mawin, 
When ither folk are busy sawin ? ' 
It seem'd to mak a kind o' stan', 

But naething spak ; 
At length, says I, ' Friend, whare ye gaun, 

Will ye go back ? ' 

It spak right howe — * My name is Death, 
But be na fley'd.'— Quoth 1, ♦ Quid faith, 
Ye're maybe come to stap my breath ; 

But tent me, billi6 ; 
I red ye weel, tak care o' skaith. 

See, there's a gully ! ' 

' Gudeman,' quo' he, 'put lip your whittle, 
I'm no design'd to try its mettle ; 



DEA TH AND DOCTOR HORJVBOOJC, 21 

But if I did, I wad be kittle 

To be mislear'd, 
I wad na mind it, no that spittle 

Out-owre my beard. 

' Weel, weel ! * says I, * a bargain be't ; 
Come, gies your hand, an' sae we're gree't ; 
We'll ease our shanks an' tak a seat. 

Come gies your news ; 
This while ye hae been mony a gate, 

At mony a house. 

* Ay, ay ! ' quo' he, an' shook his head. 

* It's e'en a lang, lang time indeed 
Sin' I began to nick the thread, 

An' choke the breath : 
Folk maun do something for their bread, 

An' sae maun Death. 

* Sax thousand years are near-hand fled, 
Sin' I was to the hutching bred. 

An' mony a scheme in vain 's been laid, 

To stap or scaur me j 
Till ane Hornbook 's ta'en up the trade. 

An' faith, he'll waur me. 

* Ye ken Jock Hornbook i' the Clachan, 
Deil mak his king's-hood in a spleuchan ! 
He's grown sae well acquaint wi* Buchan 

An' ither chaps. 
The weans baud out their fingers laughin 
And pouk my hips. 

* See, here's a scythe, and there's a dart, 
They hae pierc'd mony a gallant heart ; 
But Doctor Hornbook, wi' his art 

And cursed skill, 
Has made them baith no worth a f — t, 

Damn'd haet they'll kilL 

* 'Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaen, 
I threw a noble throw at ane ; 

Wi' less, I m sure, I've hundreds slain : 

But deil-ma-care, 
It just play'd dirl on the bane, 

But did nae mam 

' Hornbook was by, wi' ready art, 
And had sae fortify'd the part, 
That when I looked to my dart, 

It was sae blunt, 
Fient haet ot wad hae pierc'd the heart 

O' a kail-runt. 



22 DEATH AND DOCTOR HORNBOOK, 

• I drew my scythe in sic a fury, 
I near-hand cowpit wi* my hurry, 
But yet the bauld Apothecary 

Withstood the shock ; 
I might as weel hae try'd a quarry 

O' hard whin rock. 



* E'en them he canna get attended; 
Altho* their face he ne'er had kend it, 
Just sh — in a kail-blade, and send it, 

As soon's he smells't, 
Baith their disease, and what will mend it, 

At once he tells't. 



* And then, a* doctor's saws and whittles, 
Of a* dimensions, shapes, an' mettles, 

A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, ah' bottles, 

He's sure to hae ; 

Their Latin names as fast he rattles 
As A B C. 

* Calces o' fossils, earths, and trees ; 
True Sal-marinum o' the seas ; 
The Farina of beans and pease, 

He has't in plenty ; 
Aqua-fontis, what you please. 

He can content ye. 

* Forbye some new, uncommon weapons, 
Urinus Spiritus of capons ; 

Or Mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings, 
Distill'd/^r j^; 

Sal-alkali o' Midge-tail clippings, 

And mony mae. 

* Waes me for Johnny Ged's Hole now,' 
Quoth I, * if that thae news be true ! 
His braw calf-ward whare gowans grew, 

Sae white and bonie, 
Nae doubt they'll rive it wi' the plew ; 

They'll ruin Johnie ! ' 

The creature grain'd an eldritch laugh. 
And says, * Ye needna yok^ the pleugh, 
Kirk -yards will soon be till'd eneugh, 

Tak ye nae fear : 
They'll a' be trench'di wi' mony a sheugh 

In twa-three year. 



DEA TH AND DOCTOR HORNBOOJ^. 23 

* Whare I kill'd ane a fair strae-death, 
By loss o' blood or want of breath, 
This night I'm free to tak my aith, 

That Hornbook's skill 
Has clad a score i' their last claith, 

By drap and pill. 

* Alt honest Wabster to his trade, 

Whase wife's twa nieves were scarce well-bred, 
Gat tippence-worth to mend her head, 

When it was sair ; 
The wife slade cannie to her bed, 

But ne'er spak mair. 

* A countra Laird had ta'en the batts, 
Or some curmurring in his guts, 

His only son for Hornbook sets, 

An' pays him well. 
The lad, for twa guid giromer-pets, 

Was Laird himseL 

* A bonie lass, ye kend her name, 

Some ill-brewn drink had hov'd her wftijie J 
She trusts hersel, to hide the shame, 

In Hornbook's care ; 
Horn sent her aif to her lang hame, 

To hide it thef^. 

'That's just a swatch o' ttombooVs way J 
Thus goes he on from day to day, 
Thus does he poison, kill, an' slay, 

An's weel pay'd for't j 
Yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey, 

Wi' his damn'd dirti 

* But, hark ! Til tell you of a plot, 
Tho* dinna ye be speaking o't ; 
I'll nail the self-conceited Sot 

As dead's a heltinl 
Niest time we meet, I'll wad a groat, 

He.getBhisfairhll' 

But just as he began to tell. 

The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell 

Some wee, short hour ayont the twal, 

Which rais'd us baith 5 
I took the way that pleas'd mysel, 

And sae did Death. 



5^4 THE BRIGS OF A YR. 



THE BRIGS OF AYR. 

A POEM, 

INSCRIBED TO JOHN BALLANTINE, ESQ. AYR. 

The simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough. 

Learning his tuneful trade from ev'ry bough ; 

The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush ; 

Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush ; 

The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill, 

Or deep-ton'd plovers, grey, wild-whistling o'er the hill 

Shall he, nurst in the Peasant's lowly shed. 

To hardy independence bravely bred, 

By early poverty to hardship steel'd, 

And train'd to arms in stern Misfortune's field ; 

Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes, 

The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes ? 

Or labour hard the panegyric close. 

With all the venal soul of dedicating Prose ? 

No ! though his artless strains he rudely sings. 

And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings, 

He glows with all the spirit of the Bard, 

Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward. 

Still, if some Patron's gen'rous care he trace, 

Skill'd in the secret, to bestow with grace ; 

When Ballantyne befriends his humble name 

And hands the rustic Stranger up to fame, 

With heartfelt throes his grateful bosom swells, ' 

The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels. 



'Twas when the stacks get on their winter-hap, 
And thack and rape secure the toil- won crap ; 
Potatoe-bings are snugged 'up frae skaith 
O' coming Winter's biting, frosty breath ; 
The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils, 
Unnumber'd buds an' flow'rs, delicious spoils, 
Seal'd up with frugal care in massive waxen piles. 
Are doom'd by Man, that tyrant o'er the weak, 
The death o' devils, smoor'd wi' brimstone reek : 
The thund'ring gims are heard on ev'ry side. 
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide ; 
The feather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie, 
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie : 



THE BRIGS OF A YR. 25 



{What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds. 
And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds !) 
Nae mair the flow'r in field or meadow springs ; 
Naa mair the grove with airy concert rings, 
Except perhaps the Robin's whistling glee, 
Proud o the height o' some bit half-lang tree : 
The hoary morns precede the sunny days. 
Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide blaze. 
While thick the gossamour waves wanton in the rays. 

'Twas in that season ; when a simple Bard, 

Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward, 

Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr, 

By whim inspir'd, or haply prest wi' care, 

He left his bed and took his wayward rout, 

And down by Simpson's wheel'd the left about : 

(Whether impeil'd by all-directing Fate, 

To witness what I after shall narrate ; 

Or whether, rapt in meditation high. 

He wander'd out he knew not where nor why :) 

The drowsy Dungeon clock had number'd two, 

And Wallace Tow'r had sworn the fact was true : 

The tide-swoln Firth, wi' sullen-sounding roar, 

Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the shore 

All else was hush'd as Nature's closed e'e ; 

The silent moon shone high o'er tow'r and tree : 

The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam. 

Crept, gently-crusting, owre the glittering stream. — 

When, lo ! on either hand the list'ning Bard, 
The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard ; 
Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air. 
Swift as the Gos drives on the wheeling hare ; 
Ane on th' Auld Brig his airy shape uprears. 
The ither flutters o'er the rising piers : 
Our warlock Rhymer instantly descry'd 
The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside. 
(That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke, 
And ken the lingo of the sp'ritual folk ; 
Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies, a', they can explain them, 
And ev'n the vera deils they brawly ken them.) 
Auld Brig appear'd o' ancient Pictish race. 
The vera wrinkles Gothic in his face : 
He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang, 
Yet, teughly doure, he bade an unco bang. 
New Brig was buskit, in a braw new coat. 
That he, at Lon'on, frae ane Adams got ; 
In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead, 
Wi' virls an' whirlygigums at the head. 
The Goth was stalking round with anxious search. 
Spying tlie time-worn flaws in ev'ry arch ; 
It chanc'd his new-come neebor took liis e'^ 
And e'en a vex'd and angry heart had he I 



26 THE BRIGS OF A YR. 



Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien, 
He, down the water, gies him this guid-een : — 

AULD BRIG. 

I doubt na, Frien', ye'll think yeVe nae sheep-shank, 
Ance ye were streekit owre frae bank to bank ! 
But gin ye be a brig as auld as me, 
Tho', faith ! that date, I doubt, ye'll never see ; 
There'll be, if that day come, I'll wad a boddle, 
Some fewer whigmeleeries in your noddle. 

NEW BRIG. 

Auld Vandal, ye but show your little mense. 
Just much about it wi' your scanty sense ; 
Will your poor, narrow foot-path of a street^ 
Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet, 
Your ruin'd, formless bulk o' stane and lime, 
Compare wi' bonie Brigs o' modem time ? 
There's men of taste wou'd tak the Ducat-stream, 
Tho' they should cast the vera sark and swim, 
Ere they would grate thdr feelings. wi' the view 
O' sic an ugly, Gothic hulk as you. 

AULD BRIG. 

Conceited gowk ! puff 'd up wi' windy pride ! 
This mony a year I've stood the flood an' tide ; 
And tho* wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfaim, 
I'll be a Brig, when ye're a shapeless cairn ! 
As yet ye little ken about the matter. 
But twa-three winters will inform ye better. 
When hea\7, dark, continued, a'-day rains, 
Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains ; 
When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil, 
Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil, 
Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course 
Or haunted Garpal draws his feeble source, 
Arous'd by blust'ring winds an' spotting thowes; 
In mony a torrent down his snaw-broo rowes ; 
While crashing ice, borne on the roaring spate, 
Sweeps dams, an' mills, an' brigs, a' to the gate ; 
And from Glenbuck, down to the Ratton-key, 
Auld Ayr is just one lengthen'd, tumbling sea ; 
Then down ye'll hurl, deil nor ye never rise ! 
And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies. 
A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost. 
That Architecture's noble art is lost ! 

NEW BRIG. 

Fine Architecture, trowth, I needs must say't o't ; 
The Lord be thankit that we've lint the gate o't I 
Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-allunng edifices. 
Hanging with threat'ning jut, like precipices ; 



THE BRIGS OF A YR. 2f 



O'er arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves, 

Supporting roofs, fantastic, stony groves . 

Windows and doors in nameless sculptures drest, 

With order, symmetry, or taste unblest ; 

Forms like some bedlam Statuary's dream. 

The craz'd creations of misguided whim ; 

Forms might be worshipp'd on the bended knee. 

And still the second dread command be free, 

Their likeness is not found on earth, in air, or sea. 

Mansions that would disgrace the building taste 

Of any mason reptile, bird, or beast ; 

Fit only for a doited monkish race, 

Or frosty maids forsworn the dear embrace. 

Or cuifs of later times, wha held the notion, 

That sullen gloom was sterling, true devotion ; 

Fancies that our guid Brugh denies protection. 

And soon may they expire, unblest with resurrection I 

AULD BRIG. 

O ye, my dear-remembej'd, ancient yealins, 
Were ye but here to share my wounded feelings ! 
Ye worthy Proveses, an' mony a Bailie, 
Wha in the paths o' righteousness did toil ay ; 
Ye dainty Deacons, air ye douce Conveeners, 
To whom our modems are biit causey-cleaners I 
Ye godly Councils wha hae blest this town ; 
Ye. godly Brethren o' the sacred gown, 
Wha meekly gie your hurdies to the smiters ; 
And (what would now be strange) ye godly Writers : 
A' ye douce folk I've borne aboon the broo, 
Were ye but here, what wculd ye say or do ! 
How would your spirits groan in deep vexation. 
To see each melancholy alteration ; 
And agonizing, curse the time and place 
When ye begat the base, degen'rate race ! 
Nae Janger Rev' rend Men, their country's glory. 
In plain braid Scots hold forth a plain braid story 
Nae langer thrifty Citizens, an' douce, 
Meet owre a pint, or in the Council-house ; 
But staumrel, corky-headed, graceless Gentry, 
The herryment and ruin of the country ; 
Men, three-parts made by Tailors and by Barbers, 
Wha waste your weel-hain'd gear on damn'd new Brigs 
and Harbours ! 

NEW BRIG. 

Now baud you there t faith ye've said enough. 
And muckle mair than ye can mak to through ; 
As for your Priesthood, I shall say but little, 
Corbies and Clergy are a shot right kittle : 



48 THE BRIGS OF A YR. 



But, under favour o' your langer beard. 

Abuse o* Magistrates might weel be spar'd : 

To liken them to your auld-warld squad, 

I must needs say, comparisons are odd. 

In Ayr, Wag-wits nae mair can have a handle 

To mouth 'a Citizen,' a term o' scandal : 

Nae mair the Council waddles down the street. 

In all the pomp of ignorant conceit; 

Men wha grew wise priggin owre hops an' raisins. 

Or gather'd lib'ral views in bonds and seisins. 

If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp, 

Had shor'd them wi' a glimmer of his lamp. 

And would to Common-sense for once betray'd them, 

Plain, dull Stupidity stept kindly in to aid them. 

What farther clishmaclaver might been said, 
What bloody wars, if Sprites had blood to shed. 
No man can tell ; but all before their sight 
A fairy train appear'd in order bright : 
Adown the glittering stream they feally danc'd ; 
Bright to the moon their various dresses glanc'd : 
They footed o'er the wat'ry glass so neat, 
The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet : 
While arts of Minstrelsy among them rung, 
And soul-ennobling Bards heroic ditties sung. 
O had M 'Lauchlan, thairm-inspiring sage, 
Been there to hear this heavenly band engage, 
When thro' his dear strathspeys they bore with Highland rage, 
Or when they struck old Scotia's melting airs, 
The lover's raptur'd joys or bleeding cares ; 
How would his Highland lug been nobler fir'd. 
And ev'n his matchless hand with finer touch inspir'd ! 
No guess could tell what instrument appear'd. 
But all the soul of Music's self was heard ; 
Harmonious concert rung in every part. 
While simple melody pour'd moving on the heart. 

The Genius of the Stream in front appears, 
A venerable Chief, advanc'd in years ; 
His hoary head with water-lilies crown'd, 
His manly leg with garter tangle bound. 
Next came the loveliest pair in all the ring. 
Sweet Female Beauty hand in hand with Spring ; 
Then, crown'd with flow'ry hay, came Rural Joy, 
And Summer, with his fervid-beaming eye : 
AU-cheerjng Plenty, with her flowing horn. 
Led yellow Autumn wreath'd with nodding corn ; 
Then Winter's time-bleach d locks did hoary show, 
By Hospitality with cloudless brow ; 
Next follow'd Courage with his martial stride. 
From where the Feal virild-woody coverts hide ; 
Benevolence, with mild, benignant air, 
A female form, came from the tow'rs of Stair : 



THE ORDINATION. 



29 



Learning and Worth in equal measures trode 

From simple Catrine, their long-lov'd abode : 

Last, white-rob'd Peace, crown'd with a hazel wreath, 

To rustic Agriculture did bequeath 

The broken, iron instruments of death : 

At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their kindling wrath. 



THE ORDINATION. 

For sense, they little owe to frugal HeaT/n— 
Td please the mob, they hide the little giifn^ 



Kilmarnock Wabsters, fidg€ and claw, 

An' pour your creeshie nations ; 
An' y6 wha leather rax an' draw. 

Of a' denominations ; 
Swith to the Laigh Kirk, ane an' a', 

An' there tak up your stations ; 
Then aff to Begbie's in a raw. 

An' pour divine libations 

For joy this day. 

Curst Common-sense, that imp o' hell, 

Cam in wi' Maggie Lauder ; 
Bat Oliphant aft made her yell, 

An' Russel sair misca'd her ; 
This day M'Kinlay takes the flail. 

An' he's the boy will blaud her ! 
He'll clap a shangan on her tail. 

An' set the bairns to daud her 

Wi' dirt this day. 

Mak haste an' turn king David owre, 

An' lilt wi' holy clangor ; 
O' double verse come gie us four, 

An' skirl up the Bangor : 
This day the Kirk kicks up a stoure, 

Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her, 
For Heresy is in her pow'r. 

And gloriously she'll whang her 
Wi' pith this day. 

Come, let a proper text be read, 

An' touch it off wi' vigour, 
How graceless Ham leugh at his Dad, 

Which made Canaan a niger ; 
Or Phineas drove the murdering blade, 

Wi' whore-abhorring rigour ; 
Or Zipporah, the scauldin jad, 

Was like a bluidy tiger 

1' th' Inn that day. 



There, try his mettle on the creed. 

And bind him down wi' caution, 
That Stipend is a carnal weed 

He takes but for the fashion ; 
An' gie him o'er the flock, to feed, 

And punish each transgression ; 
Especial, rams that cross the breed, 

Gie them sufficient threshin, 

Spare them nae day. 

Now auld Kilmarnock, cock thy tail, 

An' toss thy horns fu' canty ; 
Nae mair thou'lt rowte out-owre the dale, 

Because thy pasture's scanty ; 
For lapfu's large o* gospel kail 

Shall fill thy crib in plenty. 
An runts o' grace the pick an' wale. 

No gi'en by way o' dainty. 

But ilka day. 

Nae mair by Babel streams we'll weep. 

To think upon our Zion ; 
And hing our fiddles up to sleep, 

Like baby-clouts a-dryin : 
Come, screw the pegs wi' tunefu' cheep, 

And o'er the thairms be tryin ; 
Oh rare ! to see our elbucks wheep. 

And a* like lamb-tails flyin 

Fu' fast this df^y ! 

Lang, Patronage, wi' rod o' aim, 

Has shor'd the Kirk's undoin. 
As lately Fenwick, sair forfairn, 

Has proven to his ruin . 
Our Patron, honest man 1 Glencairn, 

He saw mischief was brewin ; 
And like a godly, elect bairn. 

He's wal'd us out a true ane. 

And sound this day. 



30 



THE CALF. 



Now Robinson harangue nae mair, 

But Steele your gab for ever : 
Or try the wicked town of Ayr, 

For there they'll think you clever ; 
Or, nae reflection on your lear, 

Ye may commence a Shaver; 
Or to the Netherton repair, 

And turn a Carpet-weaver 

Afif-hand this day. 

Mutrie and you were just a match, 

We never had sic twa drones : 
Auld Hornie did the Laigh Kirk watch, 

Just like a winkin baudrons ; 
And ay he catch'd the tither wretch, 

To fry them in hjs caudrons ; 
But now his Honour maun detach, 

Wi' a' his brimstone squadrons, 

Fast, fast this day. 

See, see auld Orthodoxy's faes 

She's swingein thro' the city ; 
Hark, how the nine-tail'd cat she plays ! 

I vow it's unco pretty ! 
There, Learning, with his Greekish face, 

Grunts out some Latin ditty ; 
And Common-sense is gaun, she says, 

To mak to Jamie Beattie 

Her plaint this day. 



But there's Morality himsel, 

Embracing all opinions ; 
Hear, how he gies the tither yell, 

Between his twa companions ; 
See, how she peels the skin an' fell. 

As ane were peelin onions ! 
Now there, they're packed aff to hell. 

And banish 'd our dominions, 

Henceforth this day. 

O happy day ! rejoice, rejoice ! 

Come bous6 about the porter ! 
Morality's demyre decoys 

Shall here nae mair find quarter : 
M 'Kinlay, Russel are the boys 

That heresy can torture ; 
They'll gie her on a rape, a hoyse. 

And cowe her measure shorter 

By th' head some day. 

Come, bring the tither mutchkin in, 

And here's, for a conclusion. 
To every New Light mother's son, 

From this time forth. Confusion : 
If mair ,they deave us wi' their din, 

Or Patronage intrusion, 
We'll light a spunk, and, ev'ry skin, 

WeMl rin them aff in fusion 

Like oil, some day. 



THE CALF. 

TO THE REV. i!lR. JAMES STEVEN, OK HIS TEXT, MALACHI, CH. IV. VER. 2. 
^' And ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall." 



Right, Sir ! your text I'll prove it true, 

Tho' Heretics may laugh ; 
For instance, there's yoursel just now, 

God knows, an unco Calf ! 

And should some Patron be so kind. 

As bless you wi' a kirk, / 
I doubt na, Sir, but then we'll find, 

Ye' re still as great a Stirk. 

But, if the Lover's raptur'd hour 

Shall ever be your lot. 
Forbid it, ev'ry heavenly Power, 

You e'er should be a Slot I 



Tho', when some kind, connubial Dear, 

Your but-and-ben adorns. 
The like has been that you may wear 

A noble head of horns. 

And, in your lug, most reverend James, 
To hear you roar and rowte. 

Few men o'.sense will doubt your claims 
To rank amang the Nowte. 

And when ye're number'd wi' the dead. 

Below a grassy hillock, 
Wi' justice they may mark your head — 

* Here lies a famous Bullock I ' 



ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. 



31 



ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. 



O Prince! O Chief of many {kroned Povfrs, 
That led tK embattled Seraphim to war — 

MILTON. 



O THOU ! whatever title suit thee, 
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie, 
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie, 

Clos'd under hatches, 
Spairges about the brunstane cootie. 

To scaud poor wretches ! 

Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee. 
An* let poor damned bodies be ; 
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie, 

Ev'n to a deil. 
To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me, 

An' hear us squeel ! 

Great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame ; 
Far kend an' noted is thy name ; 
An' tho' yon lowin heugh's thy hame. 

Thou travels far ; 
An* faith ! thou's neither lag nor lame. 

Nor blate nor scaur. 

Whyles, ranging like a roarin lion 
For prey, a' holes an' corners tiyin ; 
Whyles on the strong-wing'd Tempest 
flyin, 

Tirlin the kirks ; 
Whyles, in the human bosom pryin, 
Unseen thou lurks. 

I've heard my reverend Graunie say. 
In lanely glens ye like to stray ; 
Or where auld, ruin'd castles, gray,- 

Nod to the moon. 
Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way, 

Wi' eldritch croon. 

When twilight did my Graunie summon. 
To say her pray' rs, douce, honest woman ! 
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you 
bummin, 

Wi' eerie drone ; 
Or, rustlin, thro' the boortrees comin, 

Wi' heavy groan. 



Ac dreary, windy, winter night. 

The stars shot down wi' sklentin light, 

Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright, 

Ayont the lough ; 
Ye, like a rash-buss, stood in sight, 

Wi' waving sugh. 

The cudgel in my nieve did shake, 
Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake. 
When wi' an eldritch, stoor quaick, 
quaick, 

Amang the springs, 
Awa ye squatter'd like a drake. 

On whistling wings. 

Let warlocks grim, an' wither'd hags, 
Tell how wi' you on ragweed nags. 
They skim the muirs, an' dizzy crags, 

Wi' wicked speed ; 
And in kirk -yards renew their leagues, 

Owre howkit dead. 

Thence, countra wives, wi' toil an' pain, 
May plunge an' plunge the kirn in vain; 
For, oh ! the yellow treasure's taen 

By witching skill ; 
An' dawtit, twal-pint Hawkie's gaen 

As yell's the Bill. 

Thence, mysuc knots mak great abuse. 
On young Guidmen, fond, keen, an* 

crouse ; 
When the best wark-lume i' the house. 

By cantrip wit. 
Is instant made no worth a louse, 
Just at the bit. 

When thowes dissolve the snawyhoord, 
An' float the jinglin icy-boord. 
Then, Water-kelpies haunt the foord, 

By your direction. 
An' nighted Trav'llers are allur'd 

To their destruction. 



32 



DEATH AND DYING WORDS 



An' aft your moss-traversing Spunkies 
Decoy the wight that late an' drunk is : 
The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkies 

Delude his eyes, 
Till in some miry slough he sunk is, 

Ne'er mair to rise. 

When Masons' mystic word an' grip, 
In. storms an' tempests raise you up, 
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop, 

Or, strange to tell ! 
The youngest Brother ye wad whip 

Aff straught to hell. 

Lang syne, in Eden's bonie yard. 
When yduthfu' lovers first were pair'd, 
An' all the soul of love they shar'd, 

The raptVT'd hour. 
Sweet on the fragrant, flow'ry swaird, 

In shady bow'r ; 

Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog ! 

Ye came to Paradise incog. 

An' play'd on man a cursed brogue, 

(Black be you fa !) 
An' gied the^nfant warld a shog, 

'Maist ruin'd a'. 

D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz, 
Wi' reekit duds, an' reestit gizz, 
Ye did present your smoutie phiz, 
'Mang better folk, 



An' sklented on the man of Uzz' 

Your spitefu' joke ? 

An' how ye gat him i' your thrall, 
An' brak him out o' house an' hal', 
While scabs an' blotches did him gall, 

Wi^ bitter claw, 
An' lows'd his ill-tongu'd, wicked Scawl, 

Was warst ava ? 



But a' your doings to rehearse, 
Your wily snares an' fechtin fierce. 
Sin' that day Michael did you pierce, 

Down to this time, 
Wad ding a' Lallan tongue, or Erse, 

In prose or rhyme. 

An' now, auld Cloots, I ken ye'rethinkin, 
A certain Bardie's rantin, drinkin, 
Some luckless hour will send him linkin, 

To your black pit ; 
But, faith ! he'll turn a comer jinkin, 

An' cheat you yet. 

But, fare you weel, auld Nickie ben i 
O wad ye tak a thought an' men' ! 
Ye aiblins might— I dinna ken — 

Still hae a stake — 
I'm wae to think upo' yon den, 

Ev'n for your sake ! 



THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR MAILIE, 
THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE, 

AN UNCO MOURNFU' TALE. 



As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither. 
Was ae day nibbling on the tether. 
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, 
An' owre she warsl'd in the ditch ; 
There, groaning, dying, she did lie, 
When Hughoc he cam doytin by. 

Wi' glowrin een, an' lifted ban's, 
Poor Hughoc like a statue Stan's ; 
He sa\\( her days were near hand ended. 
But, waes my heart ! he couldnamendit ! 
He gaped wide, but naething spak. 
At length poor Mailie silence brak. 



* O thou, whase lamentable face 
Appears to mourn my woefu' case ! 
My dying words attentive hear, 
An' bear them to my Master dear. 

' Tell him, if e'er again he keep 
As muckle gear as buy a sheep, 
O, bid him never tie them mair 
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair ! 
But ca' them out to park or hill, 
An' let them wander at their will ; 
So may his flock increase, an' grow 
To scores o' lambs, an' packs o' woo' ! 



dF POOR MAILIB. 



%% 



* Tell hin^j ^e was a Master kia', 
An' ay was guid to me an' mine ; 
An* now my dying charge I gie him, 
My helpless lambs, I trust them wi' him. 

* O, bid him save their harmless lives, 
Frae dogs, an' t6ds, an' butchers' knives! 
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill, 
Till they be fit to fend themsel : 

An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, 
Wi' teats o' hay an' ripps o' corn. 

* An' may they never learn the gaets 
Of ither vile wanrestfu' pets ! 

To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal. 
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail. 
So may they, like their great Forbears, 
Fpr monie a year come thro' the sheers ; 
So wives will gie them bits o' bread, 
An' bairns greet for them when they're 
dead. 

* My poor toop-lamb, my son an' heir, 
O, bid him breed him up wi' care ! 
An', if he live to be a beast, 

To pit some havins in his breast ! 



An' warn him, what I winna name, 
To stay content wi' yowes at hame j 
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots, 
Like ither menseless, graceless brates. 

' An' niest my yowie, silly thing, 
Gude keep thee frae a tether string ! 
O, may thou ne'er forgather up 
Wi' ony blastit, moorland toop ; 
But ay keep mind to moop an' mell, 
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel ! 

'And now, my bairns, wi' my last 
breath 
I lea'e my blessin wi' you baith : 
An' when you think upo' your Mither, 
Mind to be kind to ane anither. 

* Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail, 
To tell my Master a' my tale ; 
An' bid him bum this cursed tether, 
An', for thy pains, thou'se get my blether.' 

This said, poor Mailie turn'd her head, 
An' clos'd her een amang the dead ! 



POOR MAILIE^S ELEGY. 



Lament in rhyme, lament in prose, 
Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose ; 
Our Bardie's fate is at a close, 

Past a' remead ; 
The last, sad cape-stane of his woes ; 

Poor Mailie 's dead ! 

It's no the loss o' warl's gear, 
That could sae bitter draw the tear. 
Or mak our Bardie, dowie, wear 

The mourning weed ; 
He's lost a friend and neebor dear, 

In Mailie dead. 

Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him ; 
A lang half-mile she could descry him ; 
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him. 

She ran wi' speed ' 
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him. 

Than Mailie dead. 

I wat she was a sheep o' sense, 
An' could behave hersel wi' mense ; 
I'll say't, she never brak a fence, 

Thro' thievish greed. 
Our Bardie, lanely, keeps the spence 

Sin' Mailie 's dead. 



Or, if he wanders up the howe. 

Her living image in her yowe 

Comes, bleating to him, dwre the knowe. 

For bits o' bread ; 
An' down the briny pearls rowe 

For Mailie dead. 

She was nae get o' moorland tips, 

Wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips ; 

For her forbears were brought in ships, 

Frae yont the TWeed : 
A bonier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips 

Than Mailie's dead. 

Wae worth the man wha first did shape 
That vile, wanchancie thing — a rape ! 
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape, 

Wi' chokin dread; 
An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape. 

For Mailie dead. 

O, a' ye Bards on bonie Doon j 
An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune ! 
Come, join the melancholious croon 

O' Robin's reed ! 
His heart will never get aboon ! 

His Mailie's dead ! 

D 



^4 



TO JAMES SMITH. 



TO JAMES SMITH. 

Friendship ! mysterious cement of the soul! 
Sweet 'ner o/L i/e, arid solder of Society ! 
I oxve thee tnuch. 



Blair. 



DfeAR Smith, the sleeest, paukie thief, 
That e'er attempted stealth or rief, 
Ye surely hae some warlock -breef 

Owre human hearts j 
For ne'er a bosom yet was prief 

Against your arts. 

For me, I swear by sun an' moon, 
And ev'ry star that blinks aboon, 
Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon 

Just gaun to see you ; 
And ev'ry ither pair that's done, 

Mair taen I'm wi' you. 

That auld, capricious carlin, Nature, 
To mak amends for scrimpit stature, 
She's tum'd you aff, a human creature 

On her first plan, 
And in her freaks, on ev'ry feature. 

She's wrote, 'The Man.' 

Just now I've taen the fit o' rhyme. 
My barmie noddle's working prime. 
My fancie yerkit up sublime 

Wi' hasty summon : 
Hae ye a leisure-moment's time 

To hear what's comin ? 

Some rhyme, a neebor's name to lash ; 
Some rhyme (vain thought !) for needfu' 

cash ; 
Some rhyme to court the countra clash, 

An' raise a din ; 
For me, an aim I never fash ; 

I rhyme for fun. 

The star that rules my luckless lot. 

Has fated me the russet coat, 

An' damn'd my fortune to the groat ; 

But, in requit, 
Has blest me with a random shot 

O' coimtra wit 



This while my notion's taen a sklent, 
To try my fale in guid, black prent ; 
But still the mair I'm that way bent, 

Something cries, 'Hoolie! 
I red you, honest man, tak tent ! 

Ye'll shaw your folly. 

* There's ither poets, much your betters, 
Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters, 
Hae thought they had ensured their 
debtors, 

A' future ages ; 
Now moths deform in shapeless tatters. 
Their unknown pages. * 

Then farewel hopes o' laurel -boughs, 
To garland my poetic brows ! 
Henceforth I'll K)ve where busy ploughs 

Are whistling thrang, 
An' teach the lanely heights an' howes 

My rustic sang. 

I'll wander on, wi' tentless heed 
How never-halting moments speed, 
Till fate shall snap the brittle thread ; 

Then, all unknown, 
I'll lay me with th' inglorious dead. 

Forgot and gone ! 

But why o' Death begin a tale ? 
Just now we're living sound an' hale ; 
Then top and maintop crowd the sail, 

Heave Care o'er side ! 
And large, before Enjoyment's gale. 

Let's tak the tide. 

This life, sae far's I understand. 

Is a' enchanted fairy-land, 

Where pleasure is the magic wand, 

That, wielded right, 
Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand. 

Dance by fu' light 



TO yAMSS SMITh. 



35 



The magic wand then let us wield : 
Por, ance that five-an' -forty's speel'd. 
See, crazy, weary, joyless Eild, 

Wi' wrinkl'd face. 
Comes hostin, hirplin owre the field, 

Wi' creepin pace. 

When ance life's day draws near the 

gloamin, 
Then fareweel vacant careless roamin ; 
An' fareweel cheerfu' tankards foamin, 

An' social noise ; 
An' fareweel dear deluding woman. 

The joy of joys ! 

O life ! ho IV pleasant in thy morning, 
Young Fancy's rajrs the hills adorning 
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning. 

We frisk away, 
Like schoolboys, at th' expected warning. 

To joy and play. 

We wander there, we wander here, 
We eye the rose upon the brier. 
Unmindful that the thorn is near, 

Among the leaves : 
And the' the puny wound appear, ' 

Short while it grieves. 

Some, lucky, find a flow'ry spot, 
For which they never toil'd nor swat 
They drink the sweet and eat the fat, 

But care or pain ; 
And, haply, eye the barren hut 

With high dir:dain. 

With steady aim, some Fortune chase ; 
Keen hope does ev'ry sinew brace ; 
Thro' fair, thro' foul, they urge the race, 

And seize the prey; 
Then canie, in some cozie place, 

They close the day. 

And others, like your humble servan'. 
Poor wights ! nae niles nor roads observin. 
To right or left, eternal swervin, 

They zig-zag on ; 
Till curst with age, obscure an* starvin. 

They aften groan. 



Alas ! what bitter toil an' straining — 
But truce wi' peevish, poor complaining ! 
Is Fortune's fickle Luna waning ? 

E'en let her gang ! 
Beneath what light she has remaining, 

Let's sing our sang. 

My pen I here fling to the door^ 

And kneel, 'Ye Pow'rs!' and warm 

implore, 
' Tho' I should wander Terra o^er. 

In all her climes. 
Grant me but this, I ask no more, 

Ay rowth o' rhymes. 

* Gie dreeplng roasts to countra Lairds, 
Till icicles hing frae their beards ; 

Gie fine braW claes to fine Life-guards, 
And Maids of Honour ; 

And yill an' whisky gie to Cairds, 
Until they sconner. 

' A Title, Dempster merits it ; 

A Garter gie to Willie Pitt ; 

Gie Wealth to same be-ledger'd Ci^ 

In cent per cent ; 
But gie me real, sterling Wit, 

And I'm content. 

• While Ye are pleased to keep me hale, 
I'll sit down o'er my scanty meal, 
Be't water-brose, or muslin-kail, 

Wi' cheerfu' face, 
As lang's the Muses dinna fail 
To say the grace.* 

An anxious e'e I never throws 
Behint my lug, or by my nose ; 
I jouk beneaUi Misfortune's blows 

As weel's I may ; 
Sworn foe to Sorrow, Care, and Prose, 

I rhyme away. 

O ye douce folk, that live by rule. 
Grave, tideless-blooded, calm, and cool, 
Compar'd wi' you — O fool ! fool ! fool ! 

How much unlike ! 
Your hearts are just a standing pool. 

Your lives, a dvke I 

D0 



36 



A DkEAM. 



Nae hair-brain'd sentimental traces, 
In your unletter'd, nameless faces ! 
In arioso trills and graces 

Ye never stray, 
But gravissimo, solemn basses 

Ye hum away. 

Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise ; 

Nae ferly tho' ye do despise 

The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys, 



The rattlin squad : 
I see you upward cast your eyes^ 
Ye ken the road. — 

Whilst I —but I shall haud me there— 
Wi' you I'll scarce gang ony where — 
Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair, 

But quat my sarg, 
Content with You to mak a pair, 

Whare'er I gang. 



A DREAM. 



Thoughts, words, and deeds, the Statute blames zviih reason; 
But surely Dreams were ne'er indicted Treason. 

[On reading, in the public papers, the Laureate's Ode, with the other parade of June 4, 1786, 
the author was no sooner dropt asleep, than he imagined himself transported to the Birth-day 
Levee ; and, in his dreaming fancy, made the following Address.] 



GuiD-MORNiN to your Majesty ! 

May heaven augment your blisses, 
On ev'ry new birth-day ye see ; 

A humble Bardie wishes ! 
My Bardship here, at your Levee, 

On sic a day as this is, 
Is sure an uncouth sight to see, 

Amang thae Birth-day dresses 
Sae fine this day. 

I see ye're complimented thrang, 

By mony a lord an' lady ; 
' God save the King !' 's a cuckoo sang 

Thai's unco easy said ay ; 
The Poets, too, a venal gang, 

Wi' rhymes weel-turn'd and ready, 
Wad gar yon trow ye ne'er do wrang, 

But ay unerring steady, 

On sic a day. 

For me : before a Monarch's face, 

Ev'n t/icrc I winna flatter ; 
For neither pension, post, nor place, 

.'\m I your humble debtor : 
So, nae reflection on Your Grace, 

Your Kingship to bespatter ; 
There's monie waur been o' the Race, 

And aiblins ane been better 

Than You this day. 



'Tis veiy tine, my sovereign King, 

My skill may weel be doubted: 
But Facts are cheels that winna ding. 

An' downa be disputed : 
Your Royal nest, beneath your wing, 

Is e'en right reft an' clouted, 
And now the third part of the string, 

An' less, will gang about it 

Than did ae day. 

Far be't frae me that I aspire 

To blame your legislation, 
Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire, 

To rule this mighty nation ; 
But, faith ! I muckle doubt, my Sire, 

Ye've trusted Ministration 
To chaps, wha, in a barn or byre. 

Wad better fill'd their station 

Than courts yon day. 

And now ye've gien auld Britain peace, 

Her broken shins to plaister ; 
Your sair taxation does her fleece 

Till she has scarce a tester ; 
For me, thank God, my life's a lease 

Nae bargain wearing faster. 
Or, faith ! I fear that with the geese, 

I shortly boost to pasture 

I' the craft some day. 



A DREAM. 



37 



I'm no mistrusting Willie Pitt, 

When taxes he enlarges, 
(An' Will's a true guid fallow's get, 

A name not envy spairges, ) 
That he intends to pay your debt. 

An' lessen a' your charges ; 
But, God's Sake ! let nae saving-fit 

Abridge your bonie barges 

An' boats this day. 

Adieu, my Liege ) may freedom geek 

Beneath your high protection ; 
An' may Ye rax Corruption's neck, 

And gie her for dissection ! 
But since I'm here, I'll no n^^glect, 

In loyal, true affection. 
To pay your Queen, with due respect, 

My fealty an' subjection 

This great Birth-day. 

Hail, Majesty most Excellent ! 

While nobles strive to please Ye, 
Will Ye accept a compliment 

A simple Poet gies Ye ? 
Thae bonny bairntime Heav'n has lent, 

Still higher may they heeze Ye 
In bliss, till Fate some day is sent. 

For ever to release Ye 

Frae care that day. 

For you, young Potentate o' Wales, 

I tell your Highness fairly, 
Down Pleasure's stream, wi' swdlingsails 

I'm tauld ye're driving rarely ; 
But some day ye may gnaw your nails. 

An' curse your folly sairly. 
That ere ye brak Diana's pales, 

Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie, 

By night or day. 

Yet aft a ragged cowte's been known 

To mak a noble aiver ; 
Sae, ye may doucely fill a Throne, 

For a' their clish-mafClaver : 



There, Him at Agincourt wha shone, 
Few better were or braver ; 

And yet, ,wi' funny, queer Sir John, 
He was an unco shaver 

For monie a day. 

For you, right rev'rend Osnaburg, 

Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter, 
Altho' a ribban at your lug 

Wad been a dress completer : 
As ye disown yon paughty dog 

That bears the Keys of Peter, 
Then, swith ! an' get a wife to hug, 

Or, trouth I ye'U stain the Mitre 
Some luckless day. 

Young, royal Tarry Breeks, I leara, 

Ye've lately come athwart her ; 
A glorious galley, stem and stem, 

Weel rigg'd for Venus' barter ; 
But first hang out, that she'll discern 

Your hymeneal charter, 
Then heave aboard your grapple aim, 

An', large upon her quarter, 

Come full that day. 

Ye, lastly, bonie blossoms a'. 

Ye royal Lasses dainty, 
Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw, 

An' gie you lads a-plenty : 
But sneer na British boys awa', 

For Kings are unco scant ay , 
An' German Gentles are but sma'. 

They're better just than want ay 
On ome day. 

God bless you a' ! consider now 
Ye're unco muckle dautet , 

But, e'er the course o' life be through- 
It may be bitter sautet 

An' I hae seen their coggie fou, 
That yet hae tarrow't a{ »t 

But or the day was done, J trow. 
The laggen they hae clautet 

Fu* clean that day. 



38 



THE VISION. 



THE VISION. 



DUAN FIRST. 



The sun had clos'd the winter day, 
The Curlers quat their roarin play, 
An' hunger'd Maukin taen her way 

To kail-yards green, 
While faithless snaws ilk step betray 

Whare she has been. 

The thresher's weary flingin-tree 
The lee-lang day had tired me ^ 
And whan the day had clos'd his e'e, 

Far i' the west, 
Ben i' the Spence, right pensivelie, 

I gaed to rest. 

There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek, 
I sat and ey'd the spewing reek, 
That fiU'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek, 

The auld, clay biggin ; 
An* heard the restless rattons squeak 

About the riggin. 

All in this mottie, misty clime, 
I backward mus'd on wasted time. 
How I had spent my youth fu' prime, 

An' done nae-thin_g, 
But stringin blethers up in rhyme, 

For fools to sing. 

Had I to guid advice but harkit, 
I might, by this, hae led a market. 
Or strutted in a bank, and clarkit 

My cash -account : 
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit, 

Is a' th' amount 

I- started, mutt'ring, blockhead ! coof ! 
And heav'd on high my waukit loof, 
To swear by a' yon starry roof. 

Or some rash aith. 
That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof 

Till my last breath — 



When click ! the string the snick did" 

draw ; 
And jee ! the door gaed to the wa' ; 
And by my ingle-lowe I saw. 

Now bleezin bright, 
A tight, outlandish Hizzie, braw, 
Come full in sight. 

Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht ; 
The infant aifh, half-form'd, wascrusht; 
I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht 

In some wild glen ; 
When sweet, like modest worth, she 
blusht, 

And stepped ben. 

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs 
Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows, 
I took her for some Scottish Muse, 

By that same token ; 
And come to stop these reckless vows. 

Would soon been broken. 

A ' hair-brain'd, sentimental trace. 
Was strongly marked in her face ; 
A wildly-witty, rustic grace 

Shone full upon her ; 
Her eye, ev'n turn'd on empty space, 

Beam'd keen with Honour. 

Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen. 
Till half a leg was scrimply seen ; 
And such a leg ! my bonie Jean 

Could only peer it ; 
Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean, 

Nane else came near it... 

Her mantle large, of greenish hue, 
My gazing wonder chiefly drew ; 
Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, 
threw 

A lustre grand ; 
And seem'd, to my astonish'd view 

A well-known Land. 



THE VISION. 



39 



Here, rivers in the sea were lost ; 
There, mountains to the skies were tost : 
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast 

With surging foam j 
There, distant shone Art's lofty boast. 

The lordly dome. 
* 
Here, Doon pour'd down his far-fetch'd- 

floods ; 
There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds, 
Auld hermit Ayr staw thro' his woods, 

On to the shore ; 
And many a lesser torrent scuds, 

With seeming roar. 

Low, in a sandy valley spread. 

An ancient Borough rear'd her head ; 

Still, as in Scottish story read, 

She boasts a Race, 
To ev'ry nobler virtue bred, 

And polish'd grace. 

By stately tow'r or palace fair, 

Or ruins pendent in the air. 

Bold stems of Heroes, here and there, 

I could discern ; 
Some seem'd to muse, some seem'd to 
dare, 

With feature stern. 

My heart did glowing transport feel. 

To see a Race heroic wheel, 

And brandish round the deep-dy'd steel 

In sturdy blow-s ; 
While back-recoiling seem'd to reel 

Their Suthron foes. 



His Country's .Saviour, mark him 

well! 
Bold Richardton's heroic swell ; 
The Chief on Sark who glorious fell. 

In high command ; 
And He whom ruthless fates expel 

His native land. 

There, where a sceptr'd Pictish shade 
Stalk'd round his ashes lowly laid, 
I mark'd a martial Race, pourtray'd 

In colours strong ; 
Bold, soldier-featur'd, undismay'd 

They strode along. 

Thro' many a wild, romantic grove. 
Near many a hermit-fancy'd cove, 
(Fit haunts for Friendship or for Love 

In musing mood,) 
An aged Judge, I saw him rove, 

Dispensing good. 

With deep-struck reverential awe 
The learned Sire and Son I saw. 
To Nature's God and" Nature's law 

They gave their lore : 
This, all its source and end to draw ; 

That^ to adore. 

Brydon's brave Ward I well could spy, 
Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye ; 
Who call'd on Fame, low standing by. 

To hand him on. 
Where many a Patriot name on high, 

And Hero shone. 



DUAN SECOND. 



With musing-deep, astonish'd stare, 
I view'd the heavenly-seeming Fair ; 
A whisp'ring throb did witness bear, 

Of kindred sweet, 
When with an elder Sister's air 

She did me greet. 

* All hail 1 my own inspired Bard ! 
In me thy native Muse regard ! 
Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard. 

Thus poorly low \ 
I come to give thee such reward 

As we bestow. 



* Know, the great Genius of this land 
Has many a light, aerial band, 
Who, all beneath his high command. 

Harmoniously, 
As Arts or Arms they understand. 
Their labours ply. 

* They Scotia's Race among them share ; 
Some fire the Soldier on to dare ; 
Some rouse the Patriot up to bare 

Corruption's heart : 
Some teach the Bard, a darling care, 
The tuneful art. 



40 



THE VISION. 



' 'Mong swelling floods of reeking gore, , 
They, ardent, kindling spirits pour ; 
Or, 'mid the venal Senate's roar. 

They, sightless, stand, 
To mend the honest Patriot lore. 

And grace the hand. 



* And when the Bard, or hoary Sage, 
Charm or instruct the future age, 
They bind the wild. Poetic rage 

In energy. 
Or point the inconclusive page 

Full on the eye. 



' Hence, Fullarton, the brave and young ; 
Hence, Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue; 
Hence, sweet harmonious Beattie sung 

His " Minstrel lays ; " 
Or tore, with jioble ardour stung, 

The Sceptic's bays. 

* To lower orders are assign'd 
The humbler ranks of human -kind. 
The rustic Bard, the lab'ring Hind, 

The Artisan ; • 
All choose, as various they're inclin'd. 

The various man. 



* When yellow waves the heavy grain, 
The threat'nbig storm some strongly rein ; 
Some teach to meliorate the plain 

With tillage-skill ; 
And some instruct the Shepherd-train, 
Blythe o'er the hill. 

' Some hint the Lover's harmless wile ; 
Some grace the Maiden's artless smile ; 
Some soothe the Lab'rer's weary toil. 

For humble gains, 
And make his cottage-scenes beguile 

His cares and pains. 

* Some, bounded to a district-space. 
Explore at large Man's infant race, 
To mark the embryotic trace 

Of rustic Bard ; 
And careful note each op'ning grace, 
A guide and guard. 



* Of these am I — Coila my name ; 
And this district as mine I claim, 
Where once the Campbells, chiefs of 

fame, 

Held ruling pow'r : 
I niark'd thy embryo-tuneful flame, 
Thy natal hour. 

* With future hope, I oft would gaze, 
Fond, on thy little early ways. 

Thy rudely- caroll'd, chiming phrase, 
In uncouth rhymes, 

Fir'd at the simple, artless lays 
Of other times. 

* I saw thee seek the sounding shore, 
Delighted with the dashing roar ; 
Or when the North his fleecy store 

Drove thro' the sky, 
I saw grim Nature's visage hoar 

Struck thy young eye. 

* Or when the deep green-mantl'd Earth- 
Warm-cherish'd ev'ry flow'ret's birth, 
And joy and music pouring forth 

In ev'ry grove, 
I saw thee eye the gen'ral mirth 

With boundless love. 

* When ripen 'd fields, and azure skies, 
Call'd forth the Reaper's rustling noise, 
I saw thee leave their ev'ning joys, 

And lonely stalk, 
To vent thy bosom's swelling rise 
In pensive walk. 

'When youthful Love, warm-blushing 

strong. 
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, 
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue, 

Th' adored Name, 
I taught thee how to pour in song, 

To soothe thy flame. 

' I saw thy pulse's maddening play, 
Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way, 
Misled by Fancy's meteor ray. 

By Passion driven ; 
But yet the light that led astray 

Was liffht from Heaven. 



ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID. 



41 



•I taught thy manners-painting strains, 
The Joves, the ways of simple swains, 
Till now, o'er all my wide domams 

Thy fame extends ; 
And some, the pride of Coila's plains. 

Become thy Friends. 

* Thou canst not learn, nor can I show, 
To paint with Thomson's landscape- 
glow ; 

Or wake the bosom-melting throe, 
With Shenstone's art ; 

Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow 
Warm on the heart. 

* Yet, all beneath th* unrivall'd rose. 
The lowly daisy sweetly blows ; 
Tho* large the forest's monarch throws 

His army shade. 
Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows, 
Adown the glade. 



* Then never murmur nor repine j 
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine ; 
And trust me, not Potosi's mine. 

Nor King's regard. 
Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine, 
A rustic Bard. 

' To give my counsels all in one. 
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan ; 
Preserve the dignity of Man, 

With Soul erect ; 
And trust, the Universal Plan 

Will all protect 

* And wear thou this * — she solemn said. 
And bound the Holly round my head. : 
The polish'd leaves, and berries red. 

Did rustling play ; 
And, like a passing thought, she fled 
In light away. 



ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID, OR THE RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS. 

My son, these maxims make a rule, 

A nd lump them aye thegithe^i 
The Rigid Righteous is afoolf 

The Rigid Wise anither: 
The cleanest corn that t^er ivas dight^ 

May hae some pyles o' caff in ; 
So n^er a/elloiv-creature slight 

For random ^ts o' daffin. 

Solomon. ^Eccles. vii \b» 



O YE wha are sae guid yoursel, 

Sae pious and sae holy, 
Ye've nought to do but mark and tell 

Your Neebour's fauts and folly ! 
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, 

Supply'd wi' store o' water, ^ 
The heapet happer's ebbmg still. 

And still the clap plays clatter. 

Hear "me, ye venerable Core. 

As counsel for'poor moFtals, 
That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door. 

For glaikit Folly s portals, 
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes, 

Would here propone defences, 
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes. 

Their failings and mischances. 



Ye see your state wi' their's compar'd. 

And shudder at the niffer, 
But cast a moment's fair regard. 

What maks the mighty differ; 
Discount what sc2int occasion gave 

That purity ye pride in. 
And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) 

Your better art o' hiding. 

Think, when your castigated pulse 

Gies now and then a wallop. 
What raging must his vems convulse, 

That still eternal gallop . 
Wi' wmd and tide fair i' your tail. 

Right on ye said your sea-way j 
But in the teeth o' baith to sail, 

It maks an unco leeway. 



42 



TAM SAMSON'S ELEGY. 



See Social life and Glee sit down, 

All joyous and unthinking, 
Till, quite transmugrify'd, they're grown 

Debauchery and Drinking : 
O would they stay to calculate 

Th' eternal consequences ; 
Or your more dreaded hell to state, 

Damnation of expenses ! 

Ye high, exalted, virtuous Dames, 

Ty'd up in godly laces, 
Before ye gie poor Frailty names, 

Suppose a change o' cases ; 
A dear lov'd lad, convenience snug, 

A treacherous inclination — 
But, let me whisper i' your lug, 

Ye're aiblins nae temptation. 



Then gently scan your brother Man, 

Still gentler sister Woman ; 
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang, 

To step aside, is human : 
One point must still be greatly dark. 

The moving Why they do it ; 
And just as lamely can ye mark. 

How far perhaps they rue it. 

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us, 
He knows each chord its various tone, 

Each spring its various bias : 
Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it ; 
What's done we partly may compute, 

But know not what's resisted. 



TAM SAMSON'S ELEGY. 

An honest man^s tlie noblest work o/God.—VovK. 



Has auld Kilmarnock seen the Deil ? 
Or great M 'Kinlay thrawn his heel ? 
Or Robinson again grown weel, 

To preach an' read ? 
' Na, waur than a' ! ' cries ilka chiel, 

* Tarn Samson's dead !' 

Kilmarnock lang may grunt an' grane, 
An' sigh, an' sab, an' greet her Jane, 
An' deed her bairns, man, wife, an' wean, 

In mourning weed; 
To Death, she's dearly paid the kane. 

Tarn Samson 's dead J 

The Brethren o' the mystic level 
May hing their head in woefu' bevel, 
While by their nose the tears will revel, 

Like ony bead ; 
Death's gien the I^odge an unco devel, 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

'When Winter muffles up his cloak, 
And binds the mire like a rock ; 
When to the loughs the Curlers flock 

\Vi' glcesome speed, 
Wha will they station at the cocl\ 

Tam Samson 's dead ? 



He was the king o' a' the Core, 
To guard, or draw, or wick a bore, 
Or up the rink like Jehu roar 

In time o' need ; 
But now he lags on Death's hog-score, 

Tam Samson's dead! 

Now safe the stately Sawmont sail. 
And Trouts bedropp'd wi' crimson hail, 
And Eels weel kend for souple tail. 

And Geds for greed. 
Since dark in Death's /fj/^-^vw/ we wail 

Tam Samson dead ! 

Rejoice, ye birring Paitricks a' ; 

Ye cootie Moorcocks, crousely craw ; 

Ye Maukins, cock your fud fu' braw, 

Withouten dread ; 
Your mortal Fae is now awa', 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

That woefu* morn be ever mourn'd 
Saw him in shootin graith adorn'd. 
While pointers round impatient burn'd, 

Frae couples freed ; 
But, Och ! he gaed and ne'er return'd ! 

Tam Samson's dead ! 



TAM SAMSON'S ELEGY. 



43 



In vain auld age his body batters ; 
In vain tlie gout his ancles fetters ; 
In vain the bums came down like waters, 

An acre braid ! 
Now ev'ry auld wife, greetin, clatters, 

' Tarn Samson 's dead ! ' 

Owre mony a weary hag he limpit. 
An' ay the tither shot he thumpit, 
Till coward Death behind him jumpit 

Wi' deadly feide ; 
Now he proclaims, wi* tout o* trumpet, 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

When at his heart he felt the dagger. 
He reel'd his wonted bottle-swagger, 
But yet he drew the mortal trigger 

Wi' weel-aim'd heed ; 
' Lord, five ! ' he cry'd, an* owre did 
stagger ; 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

Ilk hoary hunter moum'd a brither ; 
Ilk sportsman youth bemoan'd a father ; 
Yon auld gray stane, amang the heather, 

Marks out his head, 
vVhare Bums has wrote, in rhyming 
blether, 

• Tam Samson's dead ! 

There, low he lies, in lasting rest ; 
Perhaps upon his mould'ring breast 



Some spitefu' muirfowl bigs her nest. 
To hatch and breed ; 

Alas ! nae mair he'll them molest ! 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

When August winds the heather wave. 
And sportsmen wander by yon grave, 
Three vollies let his mem'ry crave 

O' pouther an' lead, 
Till Echo answer frae her cave, 

Tam Samson 's dead ! 

Heav'n rest his saul, whare'er he be ! 
Is th' wish o' mony mae than me : 
He had tvva faults, or maybe three, 

Yet what remead ? 
Ae social, honest man want we : 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

THE EPITAPH. 

Tam Samson's weel-wom clay here lies. 
Ye canting zealots, spare him ! 

If honest worth in heaven rise, 
Ye'U mend or ye win near hini. 

PER contra. 

Go, Fame, an' canter like a fiUy 
Thro' a* the streets an' neuks o' Killie, 
Tell evVy social, honest bilhe 

To cease his grievin, 
Foryet, unskaith'd by Death's gleg gullie, 

Tim Samson 's'livin ! 




44 



HALLOWEEN. 



HALLOWEEN.* 



[The following Poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood ; but for the sake of those 
who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes 
are added, to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with 
prophecy to the peasantry' in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a 
striking part of the history of human nature, in its rude state, in all ages and nations ; and it may 
be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such should honour the Author with a perusal, 
to see the remains of it, among the more unenlightened in our own, R. B.] 

Yes I let tlie rich deride, iJie proud disdain. 
The simple pleasures of the lowly train ; 
To vie tnore .dear, congenial to my heart. 
One native c/tarm, than all the gloss of art. 

Goldsmith. 



Upon that night, when Fairies light 

On Cassilis Dovynans f dance, 
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze, 

On sprightly coursers prance; 
Or for Colean the rout is ta'en, 

Beneath the moon's pale beams ; 
There, up the Cove,t to stray an' rove 

Amang the rocks aiid streams 

To sport that night ; 

Amang the bonie, winding banks, 

Where Doon rins, wimplin, clear, 
Where Bruce § ance rul'd the martial 
ranks. 

An' shook his Carrick spear, 
Some merry, friendly, countra folks, 

Together did convene, 
Ta burn tlieir nits, an' pbu their stocks, 

An' haud their Halloween 

Fu' biythe that night. 



The lasses feat, an' cleanly neat, 

Mair braw than when they're fine ; 
Their faces biythe, fu' sweetly kythe, 

Hearts leal, an' warm, an' kin«: 
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs, 

Weel knotted on their garten. 
Some unco blate, an' some wi' gabs, 

Gar lasses' hearts gang startin 

Whyles fast at night. 

Then, first an' foremost, thro' the kail, 

Their stocks || maun a' be sought ance : 
They steek their een, an' grape an' wale, 

For muckle anes, an' straught anes. 
Poor hav'rel Will feU aff the drift, 

An' wander'd thro' the Bow-kail, 
An' pou't, for want o' better shift, 

A runt was like a sow-tail, 

Sae bow't that night. 



* Is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischief-making beings are all 
abroad on their baneful, midnight errands; particularly those aerial pet pie, the iaifies, are said, 
on that night, to hold a grand anniversary. K. B. 

t Certain little, romantic, rocky, green hills, in the neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the 
Earls of Cassilis. R. B. 

X A noted cavern near. Colean-house, called the Cove of Colean ; which, as well as Cassilis 
Dr.wnans, is famed in country story for being a favourite haunt of fairies. R. D. 

§ The famous family of that name, the ancestors of Robert, the great deliverer of his countrj', 
wore. Karls of Carrick. R. B. 

II J'he first ceremony of Halloween is, pulling each a stock, or plant of kail. TTiey must go out, 
hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with. Its being big or little, straight oi 
crooked, is prophetic of the size and .shape of the grand object of all their spells — the husband or 
wife. \i Ax\y yird, or earth, stick to the root, that is tocher, or fortune : and the taste of the t«j^^c^', 
thnt is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of the natural temper and disposition. Lastly, the stems, 
or, to give them their ordinary appellation, the runts, are placed somewhere above the head of the 
door ; and the Christian names of the people whom chance brings into the house, are, according (0 
the priority of placing: the runts^ the names in question. R. B, 



MALLOWEEl^. 



45 



Then, straught or crooked, yird or nana. 

They roar an' cry a' throu'ther; 
The vera wee things, toddlin, rin, 

Wi' stocks out-owre their shouther ; 
An' gif the custocks sweet or sour, 

Wi' joctelegs they taste them ; 
Syne coziely, aboon the door, 

Wi' cannie care, they've plac'd them 
To lie that night 

The lasses staw frae 'mangithfim a* 

To pou their stalks o* corn ; * 
But Rab slips out, an' jinks about, 

Behint the muckle thorn : 
He grippet Nejly hard An' fast ; 

Loud skirl'd a' the lasses ; 
But her tap-pickle maist was lost. 

When kmtlin i' the fause-house+ 
Wi' him that night. 

The auld giiidwife's weel-hoordet nits X 

Are round an' round divided, 
An' monie lads' and lasses' fates 

Are there that night decided : 
Some kindle, couthie, side by side, 

An' burn thegither trimly ; 
Some start awa, wi' saucy pride. 

An' jump out-owre the chimlie 

Fu' high that night. 

Jean slips in twa, wi' tentie e*e ; 

Wh'a 'twas, she wadrta tell ; 
But this is Jock, and this is me. 

She says in to hersel : 
He bleez'd owre her, an' she owre him, 

As they wad never mair part ; 
Till fuff ! he started up the lum, 

An* Jean had e'en a sair heart 

To see't, that night. j 



Poor Willie, wi' his bow-kail runt, 

Was' brunt wi' primsie Mallie, 
An' Mary, nae doubt, took the drunt, 

To be compared to Willie : 
Mall's nit lap out, wi' pridefU' fling, 

An' her ain fit it brunt it ; 
While Willie lap, an' swoor by jing, 

'Twas just the way he wanted 
To be that night. 

Nell had the fause-house in her min'. 

She pits hersel an' Rob in ; 
In loving bleeze they sweetly join, 

Till white in ase they're sobbin : 
Nell's heart was dancin at the view ; 

She whisper'd Rob to leuk for't : 
Rob, stownlins, prie'd her bonnie mou, 

Fu' cozie in the neuk for't. 

Unseen that night. 

But-Merran sat behint their backs, 

Her thoughts on Andrew Bell ; 
3he lea'es them gashin at their cracks, 

An' slips out by hersel : 
She thro' the yard the nearest taks. 

An' to the kiln she goes then, 
An' darklins grapit for the bauks, 

And in the blue-clue § throws then. 
Right fear't that night. 

An* aye she win't, an' ay she swat, 

I wat she made nae jaukin ; 
Till something held within the pat, 

Guid Lqrd ! but she was quaukin f 
But whether 'twas the Deil himsel. 

Or whether 'twas a bauk-en'. 
Or whether it was Andrew Bell, 

She did na wait on talkin 

To spier that night. 



.» *ii7^^^. ^fk*°/''f i'-^T)'^^^''' ?"d pull each, at three several times, a stalk of oats. If the third 
stak wants the tp■P^P^ckle,^hz.t .s. the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in question will come 
lo the marriage-bed anythmg but a maid. R B . ^ j m "» ««" ^""'c 

r,f ol7thnber\^r"^ili= ^f °"^*''"' ''^'*'' ^^ l^-''"^ *'?" ^^^"' °^ ^«*' ^'^^ '^tack-builder, by means 
nf old tnnber, &c. makes a large apartment m his stack, with an opening in the side which is fairest 
exposed to the wind : this he calls a ^rt7<j^-A<;/«^. RB ^ ^ 

as thevTavfhom'in^V." I '"'"'"""^ '^^'"''"^ '^}^^'^ name the lad and the lass to each particular nut. 
as they ay them m the fire ; and accordingly as they bum quietly together, or start from beside 
one another, the course and issue of the courtship will te. R B 

-ill al^ie°7o'the xS 'TS T^^' "^"1 '^''' !>V^\^n^ strictly observe these directions : Steal cht, 
off the oIH nn^ JLa^' ''^i'^^'u^' , ''"'^ '"'? ^^'^ ^°{ ^ ^'"« o*" b'"'^ Vam ; wind it in a new cnie 

surname of y^Sr^u^tlfr^Vpo^^^^^^^^^ '"^ "'"™*'* ''■°'" '^' ^'''"^'' '^ "^'"'"^ ^^^ Christian and 



4^ 



HALLOWEEN. 



Wee Jenny to her Graunie says, 
' Will ye go wi' me, Graunie ? 

* I'll eat the apple * at the glass, 

' I gat frae uncle Johnie : ' 
She fuff't her pipe wi' sic a hint, 

In wrath she was sae vap'rin, 
She notic't na, an aizle brunt 

Her braw new worset apron 

Out thro' that night. 

' Ye little Skelpie-limmer's face ! 
' I daur you try sic sportin, 

* As seek the foul Thief ony place, 

* For him to spae your fortune ? 

* Nae doubt but ye may get a sight ! 

' Great cause ye hae to fear it ; 

* For monie a ane has gotten a fright, 

* An' liv'd an' di'd deleeret, 

' On sic a night. 

* Ae Hairst afore the Sherra-moor, 

' I mind't as weel's yestreen, 

* I was a gilpey then, I'm sure 

' I was na past fyfteen : 
' The simmer had been cauld an' wat, 
' An' stuff was unco' green j 

* An' ay a rantin kirn we gat, 

* An' just on Halloween 

♦ It fell that night. 

* Our stibble-rig was Rab M 'Graen, 

' A clever, sturdy fallow ; 

* His sin gat Eppie Sim wi' wean, 

' That liv'd in Achmacalla ; 
' He gat hemp-seed, + I mind it weel, 

* An' he made unco light o't ; 
' But monie a day was by hwisel., 

* He was sae sairly frighted 

'That vera night.' 

Then up gat fechtin Jamie Fleck, 

An' he swoor by his conscience, 
That he could saw hemp-seed a peck ; 

For it was a' but nonsense : 

* Take a candle, and go alrine to a looking-glass : eat an apple before it, and some traditions say, 
yoii should comb your hair all the time ; the face of your conjugal companion, to be, .will be s.een in 
the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder. R. B. 

+ .Ste.nl out unperceived, and sow a handful of hemp-seed ; harrowing it with anylnnig you can 
conveniently draw after you. Repeat now .and then, ' Hemp-seed, I saw thee, hemp-seed, 1 saw 
thee : and him (or her) that is to be my true-love, come after me and pou thee.' Look over your 
left shoulder,-and you will see the appearance of the person invoked, in the attitude of piilhng 
hemp. Some traditions say, 'come after me, and shaw thee,' that is, show thyself: in which case 
it simply appears. Others omit the harrowing, and say, 'come after me, and harrow thee.' R. ». 

I This charm must likewise be performed unperceived, and alone. You go to the bam, apd 



The auld guidman ratight down the pock. 
An' out a handfu' gied him ; 

Syne bad him slip frae 'mang the folk, 
Sometime when nae ane see'd him. 
An' try't that night. 

He marches thro' amang the stacks, 
Tho' he was something sturtin ; 

The graip he for a harrow taks, 
An' haurls at his curpin : 

An' ev'ry now an' then, he says, 

* Hemp-seed, I .saw thee, 

• An' her that is to be my lass, 

* Come after me an' draw thee 

* As fast this night.' 

He \yhistrd up Lord Lenox' march, 

To keep his courage cheary ; 
Altho' his hair began to arch. 

He was sae fley'd an' eerie : 
Till presently he hears a squeak, 

An', then a grane an* gnmtle; 
He by his shouther gae a keek. 

An' tumbl'd wi' a wintle 

Out-owre that night. 

He roar'd a hoiTid murder-shout. 

In dread fu' desperation ! 
An' young an' auld come rinnin out, 

An' hear the sad narration : 
He swoor 'twas hilchin Jean M'Craw, 

Or crouchie Merran Humphie, 
Till stop ! she trotted thro' them a' ; 

An' wha was it but GriimpJiie 
Asteer that night ! 

Meg fain wad to the barn gaen 

To winn three wechts. o' naething ;J 
But for to meet the Deil her lane. 

She pat but little faith in : 
She gies the Herd a pickle nits, 

And twa red-cheekit apples. 
To watch, while for the barn she sets. 

In hopes to see Tarn Kipples 
That vera night. 



UALLOWEEI^. 



M 



She turns the key, wi' cannie thraw, 

An' owre the threshold ventures ; 
But first on Sawnie gies a ca'. 

Syne bauldly in she enters ; 
A ration rattl'd up the wa', 

An' she cry'd, Lord preserve her ! 
An' ran thro' midden-hole an' a', 

An' pray'd wi' zeal an' fervour, 
Fu' fast that night.' 

They hoy't out Will, wi' sair advice ; 

They hecht him some fine braw ane ; 
It chanc'd the stack he faddom't thrice * 

Was timmer-propt for thrawin : 
He taks a swirlie, auld moss-oak, 

For some black, grousome Carlin ; 
An' loot a winze, an' drew a stroke, 

Till skin in blypes cam haurlm 

Aff's nieves that night. 

A wanton widow Leezie was, 

As cantie as a kittlin ; 
But Och ! that night, amang the shaws, 

She gat a fearfu' settlin ! 
She thro' the whins, an' by the cairn. 

An' owre the hill gaed scrievin, 
Whare three lairds' lands met at a burn, f 

To dip her left sark -sleeve in, 

Was bent that night. 

Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, 
As thro' the glen it wimpl't ; 

Whyles round a rocky scar ,it strays ; 
Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't ; 



Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, 
Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle ; 

Whyles cookit underneath the braeS, 
Below the spreading hazel, 

Unseen that night. 

Amang the brachens on the brae, 

Between- her an' the moon, 
The Deil, or else an outler Quey, 

Gat up an' gae a croon : 
Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool ; 

Near lav'rock height she jumpit, 
But mist a fit, an' in the pool 

Out-owre the lugs she plumpit, 

Wi' a plunge that night. 

In order, on the clean hearth-stane, 

The luggies three :J: are ranged ; 
And ev'ry time great care is tien. 

To see them duly changed : 
Auld uncle John, wha wedlock's joys 

Sin' Mar's-year did desire, 
Because he gat the toom dish thrice, 

He heav'd them on the fire 

In wrath that night. 

Wi' merry sangs, and friendly cracks, 

I wat they did na weary ; 
And unco tales, an' funnie jokes. 

Their sports were cheap and cheary ; 
Till butter'd So'ns,§ wi' fragrant lunt. 

Set a' their gabs a-steerin ; 
Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt, 

They parted aff careerin " 

Fu' blythe that night. 



open both doors, taking them off the hinges, if possible ; for there is danger, that the filing, about 
to appear, may shut the doors, and do you some mischief Then take that instrument used in 
winnowing the corn, which, in our country dialect, wc call a ivecht ; and go through all the 
attitudes of letting down corn agamst ihc wind. Repeat it three times , and the third time an 
apparition will pass through the barn, in at the windy door, and out ai the other, having both the 
figure in question, and the appearance or retinue, marking the employment or station in life. R. B. 

* 'I'ake an opportunity of going, imnoticed, to a Benr-stnrk, and fathom it three times round. 
The last fathom of the last time, you will catch in your arms the appearance of your future conjugal 
yokefellow. R. B. 

t You go out, one or more (for this is a social spell), to a south running spring or rivulet, where 

three Inirds' lands meet,' and dip your left shirt sleeve. Go to bed m sight of a fire, and hang 

your wet sleeve before it to dry. Lie awake ; and some time near midnight, an apparition, having 

the exact figure of the grand object in question, will come and turn the sleeve, ah if to dry the 

other side of it. R. B. 

I 'J'nke three dishes ; put clean water in one, foul water in another, leave the tlnrcl empty 
blindfold a person, and lead him to the hearth where the dishes arc ranged he (or she) dips the 
left hand : if by chance in the clean water, the future husband or wife will come to the bar of 
matrimony, a maid : if in the foul, a widow : if in tbe empty dish, it foretells, with equ.d certainty, 
no marriage at all. It is repeated three times; and every time the arrangement of the dishc:> iv 
altered. R. R. 

§ Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is alwajrs the Halloween Supper. R. Bl 



48 



THE JOLLY BEGGARS. 



THE JOLLY BEGGARS 

A CANTATA. 



RECITATIVO. 



When lyart leaves bestrow the yird,. 
Or, wavering like the bauckie bird, 

Bedim cauld JBoreas' blast : 
When hails.tanes drive wi' bitter skyte. 
And infant frosts begin to bite, 

In hoary cranreuch drest; 
Ae night, at e'en, a merry core 

O' randie, gangrel bodies, 
In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore, 
To drink their orra duddies : 
Wi' quaffing and laughing. 

They ranted and they sang ; 
Wi' jumping and thumping, 
The verra girdle rang. 



First, niest the fire, in auld red rags, 
Ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags, 

And knapsack a' in o; der ; 
His doxy lay within his arm, 
Wi' usquebae and blankets warm. 

She blinket on her sodger ; 
An' aye he gies the towsie drab 

The tither skelpin' kiss. 
While she held up her greedy gab, 
Just like an aumous dish ; 

Ilk smack still, did crack still. 

Just like a cadgei-'sAvhip, 
Then staggering, and swaggering, 
He roar'd this ditty up — 



AIR. 

Tune—' Soldier's Joy.* 

I AM a son of Mars, who have been in many wars, 
And show my cuts and scars whei*ever I come ; 
This here was for a wench, and that other in a trench, 
When welcoming tljie French at the sound of the drum. 

Lai de daudle, &c. 

My 'prentiship I pass'd where my leader breath 'd his last. 
When the bloody die was cast on the heights of Abram ; 
I serv'd out my trade when the gallant game was play'd, 
And the Monro low was laid at the sound of the drum. 

Lai de daudle, &c. 

I lastly was with "Curtis, among the floating batt'ries, 
And there I left for witness an arm and a limb : 
Yet let my country need me, with Flliot to head me, 
I'd clatter on my stumps at the sound of a drum. 

Lai de daudle, &c. 

And now, tho' I must beg, with a wooden arm and \tgy 
And miny a tatter'd rag hanging over my bum, 
I'm as happy with my wallet, my bottle, and my callet, 
As when I us'd in scarlet to follow a drum. 

Lai de daudle, &c. 

What tho' with hoary locks, I must stand the winter shocks. 
Beneath the woods and rocks, oftentimes for a home ; 
When the t'other bag I sell, and the t'other bottle tell, 
J could meet a troop of hell at the sound of the drum. 



THE JOLL V BEGGA RS. 49 



REGIT ATI VO. 



He ended ; and the kebars sheuk 

Aboon the chorus roar ; 
While frighted rattons backward leuk, 

And seek the benmost bore : 



A fairy fiddler frae the neuk, 
He skirl'd out encore ! 

But up arose the martial chuck, 
And laid the loud uproar. 



AIR. 

Tune—* Soldier Laddie, * 

I ONCE was a maid, tho' I cannot tell when, 
And still my delight is in proper young men ; 
Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie, 
No wonder I'm fond of a sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lai de lal, &c 

Th« first of my loves was a swaggering blade, 
To rattle the thundering drum was his trade; 
His leg was so tight, and his cheek was so ruddy, 
Transported I was with my sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lal de lal, &c 

But the godly old chaplain left him in the lurch, 
So the sword I forsook for the sake of the church \ 
He ventur'd the soul, I risked the body, 
'Twas then I prov'd false to my sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lal de lal, &c. 

Full soon I gr&w sick of my sanctified sot, 
The regiment at large for a husband I got ; 
From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready, 
I asked no more but a sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lal de lal, &a 

But the peace it reduc'd me to beg in despair. 
Till I met my old boy at a Cunnmgham fan ; 
His rags regimental they flutter'd so gaudy. 
My heart it rejoic'd at my sodger laddie. . 

Sing, Lal de lal, &c. 

And now I have liv'd — I know not how long. 

And still I can join in a cup or a song ; 

But whilst with both hands I can hold the glass steady. 

Here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie. 

Smg, Lal de lal, &a 

RECITATIVO. 



Poor Merry Andrew, in the neuk 
Sat guzzling wi* a tinkler hizzie ; 

They mind't na wha the chorus teuk, 
Between themselves they were sae bizzy; 



At length, wi' drink and courting dizzy, 
He stoitered up an' made a face ; 

Then turn'd, an' laid a smack on Grizzy, 
Syne tun'd his pipes wi' grave grimace. 



50 



THJ$ JOLLY BEGGARii. 



AIR. 
Tu NE— M uld Syr Symon. ' 

Sir Wisdom's a fool when he's fou, 
Sir Knave is a fool in a session ; 

He's there but a 'prentice I trow, 
But I am a fool by profession. 

My grannie she bought me a beuk, 
And I held awa to the school ; 

I fear I my talent misteuk, 

But what will ye hae of a fool ? 

For drink I would venture my neck ; 

A hizzie's the half o' my craft; 
But what could ye other expect, 

Of ane that's avowedly daft ? 

I ance was ty'd up like a stirk, 
For civilly swearing and quaffing ; 

1 ance was abus'd i' the kirk, 
For towzling a lass i' my daffin. 

Poor Andrew that tumbles for sport, 
Let naebody name wi' a jeer ; 

There's ev'n, I'm tauld, i' the court, 
A tumbler ca'd tlie Premier. 

Observ'd ye, yon reverend lad 
Maks faces to tickle the mob ; 

He rails at our mountebank squad — 
It's rivalship just i' the job. 

And now my conclusion I'll tell, 
For faith I'm confoundedly dry ; 

The chiel that's a fool for himsel', 
Gude Lord, is far dafter than I. 

RECITATIVO. 

Then niest dutspak a raucle carlin, 
Wha kent fu' weel to deck the sterling, 
.r"or monie a pursie she liad hooked, 
And had in monie a well been dooked; 
Her dove had been a Highland laddie, 
But weary fa' the waefu' woodie ! 
Wi' sighs and sabs, she thus began 
To wail her braw John Highlandman : 

AIR. 

Ti'NE — ' O, an ye were dead, Gtiidman* 

A Highland lad my love was born. 
The Lawlan' laws he held in scorn : 
But he still was faithfu' to his clan, 
My gallant braw John Highlandman. 



CHORUS. 

Sing, hey, my braw John Highland 

man ! 
Sing, ho, my braw John Highlandman! 
There's no a lad in a' the Ian' 
Was match for my John Highlandman. 

With his philibeg an' tartan plaid, 
And gude claymore down by his side, 
The ladies' hearts he did trepanj 
My gallant braw John Highlandman. 

Sing, hey, &c. 

We ranged a' from Tweed to Spey, 
And liv'd like lords and ladies gay ; 
For a Lawlan' face he feared nane. 
My gallant braw John Highlandman. 

Sing, hey, &c. 

They banish'd him beyond the sea, 
But ere the bud was on the tree, 
Adown my cheeks the pearls ran, 
Embracing my John Highlandman. 

Sing, hey, &c. 

But, oh ! they catch'd him at the last, 
And bound him in a dungeon fast ; 
My cui"se upon them every ane, 
They've hang'd my braw John High- 
landman. 

Sing, hey, &c. 

And now a widow, I must mourn 
The pleasures that will ne'er return ; 
No comfort but a hearty can, 
When I think on John Highlandman. 
Sing, hey, &c. 

RECITATIVO 

A pigmy Scraper wi' his fiddle, 

Wha us'd at trysts and fairs to driddle. 

Her strappin limb and gaucy middle 

(He reach'd nae higher), 
Had hol't his heartie like a riddle, 

And blawn't on fire. 

Wi' hand on haunch, and upward ee. 
He croon'd his gamut, one, two, three, 
Then, in an Arioso key. 

The wee Apollo 
Set aff, wi' Allegretto glee. 

His giga solo. 



THE yOLly BEGGARS. 



5J 



A.IR, 
Tune—* Whistle cnvre the lave o't.' 

Let me ryke up to dight that tear, 
And go wi' me and be my dear, 
And then your every care and fear 
May whistle owre the lave o't. 

CHORUS. 

I am a fiddler to my trade, 
And a' the tunes that e'er I play'd, 
The sweetest still tp wife or maid, 
Was whistle owre the lave o't. 

At kirns and weddings we'se be there, 
And oh ! sae nicely 's we will fare ; 
We'll bouse about, till Daddie Care 
Sings whistle owre the lave o't. 

I am, &c. 

Sae merrily's the banes we'll pyke. 
And sun oursels about the dyke. 
And at oyr leisure, when ye like, 
We'll whistle owre the lave o't. 

I am, &c. 

But bless me wi' your heav'n o* charms, 
And while I kittle hair on thairms, 
Hunger, cauld, arid a' sic harms. 
May whistle owre the lave o't. 

I am, &c. 

RECITATIVO. 

Hefcharms had struck a sturdy Caird, 
As well as poor Gut-scraper ; 

He taks the fiddler by the beard. 
And draws a roosty rapier — 

He swoor, by a' was swearing worth, 

To spit him like a pliver. 
Unless he wad from that time forth 

Relinquish her for ever. 

Wi' ghastly ee, poor tweedle-dee 

Upon his hunkers bended, 
And pray'd for grace, wi' ruefu' face. 

And sae the quarrel ended. 

But the' his little heart did grieve 
When round the tinkler prest her, 

He feign'd to snirtle in his sleeve, 
When thus the Caird address'd her : 



AIR. 
Tune—' Clout the Cauldron.'' 

My bonnie lass, I work in brass, 

A tinkler is my station ; 
I've travell'd round all Christian ground 

In this my occupation ; 
I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroll'd 

In many a noble squadron ; 
But vain they search'd, when off I march 'd 

To go and clout the cauldron. 

I've ta'en the gold, &c. 

Despise that shrimp, that withei-'d imp, 

Wi'' a' his noise and cap'rin'. 
And tak a share wi' those that bear 

The budget and the apron ; 
And by that stoup, my faith and houp, 

And by that dear Kilbagie, 
If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant. 

May I ne'er weet my craigie. 

And by that stoup, &c. 

RECITATIVO. 

The Caird prevailed — th' unblushing fair 

In his embraces sunk. 
Partly wi' love o'ercome sae sair, 

And partly she was drunk. 
Sir ViolitiQ, with an air 

That show'd a man o' spunk, 
Wish'd unison between the pair. 

And made tJie bottle clunk 

To their health that night. 

But hurchin Cupid shot a shaft 

That play'd a dame a shavie. 
The fiddler rak'd her fore and aft, 

Behint the chicken cavie. 
Her lord, a wight o* Homer's craft, 

Tho' limpin' wi' the spavie,* 
He hirpl'd up, and lap like daft, 

And shor'd them Dainty Davie. 
O boot that night. 

He was a care-defying blade 

As ever ]>acchus listed, 
Tho' Fortune sair upon him laid, 

His heart she ever miss'd it. 
He had nae wish, but— to be glad, 

Nor want but — when he thirsted ; 
He hated nought but— to be sad, 

And thus the Muse suggested 
His sang that night. 
tta 



5^ 



THE JOLLY BEGGARS. 



AIR. 
Tune— '/Vra' that, andcC that' 
I AM a bard of no regard 

Wi' gentlefolks, an' a' that ; 
But Homer-like, the glowran byke, 
Frae town to town I draw that. 

CHORUS. 
For a' that, and a.' that, 

And twice as meikle's a* that ; 
I've lost but ane, I've twa behin', 

I've wife eneugh for a' that. 

I never drank the Muses' stank, 

Castalia's burn, an' a' that ; 
But there it streams, and richly ream's, 

My Helicon I ca' that. 

For a' that, &c. 

Great love I bear to a' the fair, 
Their humble slave, an' a' that ; 

But lordly will, I hold it still 
A mortal sin to thraw that. 

For a' that, &c. 

In raptures sweet, this hour v/e meet 
Wi'. mutual love, an' a' that; 

But for how lang the flie may stang, 
Let inclination law that. 

For a' that, &c. 

Their tricks and craft hae put me daft. 
They've ta'en me in, and a' that ; 

But clear your decks, and here's the 
sex I 
1 like the jads for a' that. 

For a' that, and a' that. 

And twice as muckle 's a' that, 

My dearest bluid, to do them giiid. 
They're welcome till't, for a' that. 

RECITATIVO. 
So sung the bard — and Nansie's wa's 
Shook with a thunder of applause, 

Re-echo'd from each mouth ; 
They toom'd their pocks, an' pawn'd 

their duds, 
They scarcely left to co'er their fuds, 
To quench their lowan drouth. 

Then owre again, the jovial thrang 
The pofet did request, 



To lowse his pack, an* wale a sang, 

A ballad o' the best ; 
He, rising, rejoicing. 

Between his twa Deborahs, 
Looks round him, an' found them 

Impatient for the chorus. 

AIR. 

Tune— '7<7/^ Mortals, fill yoiir Glasses.' 

See ! the smoking bowl before us, 
Mark our jovial ragged ring; 

Round and round take up the chorus. 
And in raptures let us sing ; 

CHORUS. 

A fig for those by law protected I 
Liberty's a glorious feast ! 

Courts for cowards were erected. 
Churches built to please the priesff 

What is title ? what is treasure ? 

What is reputation's care ? 
If we lead a life of pleasure, 

'Tis no matter, how or where ! 

A fig, ^c 

With the ready trick and fable. 
Round we wander all the day ; 

And at night, in barn or stable, 
Hug our doxies on the hay. 

A fig, &c. 

Does the train-attended carriage 
Thro' the country lighter rove? 

Does the sober bed of marriage 
W.tness brighter scenes of love? 
A fig, &c. 

Life is all a variorum, 

We regard not how it goes ; 

Let them cant about decorum 
Who have characters to lose. 

A fig, &c. 

Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets \ 
Here's to all the wandering train ! 

Here's our ragged brats and callets ! 
One and all cry out, Amen ! 

A tig, ice. 



THE AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR SALUTATION. 



53 



THE AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR MORNING SALUTATION 
TO HIS AULD MARE, MAGGIE, 

ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN TO HANSEL IN THE NEW YEAR. 



A GUip New- Year I wish thee, Maggie ! 
Hae, there's a ripp to thy auld baggie : 
Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, £|,n' 
Imaggie, 

I've seen the day, 
Thou could hae gane like ony staggie 

Out-owre the lay. 

Tho* now thou's dowie, stiff, an' crazy, 
An' thy auld hide's as white's a daisie, 
I've seen thee dappl't, sleek an' glaizie, 

A bonie gray : 
He should been tight that daur't to raize 
thee, 

Ance in a day. 

Thou ance was i' the foremost rank, 
A filly buirdly, steeve, an' swank, 
An' set weel down a shapely shank. 

As e'er tread yird ; 
An' could hae flown out-owre a stank, 

Like onie bird. 

It's now some nine-an'-twenty year, 
Sin' thou was"my guid-father's meere j 
He gied me thee, o' tocher clear. 

An' fifty mark ; 
Tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear. 

An' thou was stark. 

When first I gaed to woo my Jenny, 
Ye then was trottin wi' your minnie : 
Tho' ye was trickie, slee, an' funnie, 

Ye ne'er was donsie 
Bat hamely, tawie, quiet, an' cannie. 

An' unco sonsie. 

That day, ye pranc'd wi' muckle pride, 
When ye bure hame my bonie bride ; 
An' sweet an' gracefu' she did ride, 

Wi' maiden air ! 
Kyle-Stewart I could bragged wide, 

For sic a pair. 



Tho' now ye dow but hoyte and hoble, 
An' wintle like a saumont-coble, 
That day ye was a j inker noble 

For heels an' win' ! 
An' ran them till they a' did wauble. 

Far, far behin'. 

When thou an' I wer? young and skeigh, 
An' stable-meals at fairs were driegh. 
How thou wad prance, an* snore, an' 
skriegh 

An' tak the road ! 
Town's-bodies ran, and stood abeigh,- 

An' ca't thee mad. 

When thou was corn't, an' I was mellow. 
We took the road ay like a swallow : 
At Brooses thou had ne'er a fellow, 

For pith an' speed ; 
But ev'ry tail thou pay't them hollow, 

Whare'er thou gaed. 

The sma*, droop-rumpl't, hunter cattle. 
Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle ; 
But sax Scotch miles thou try't their 
mettle. 

An' gart them whaizle : 
Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle 

O' saugh or hazel. 

Thou was a noble fittie-Ian', 

A.S e'er in tug or tow was drawn ! 

Aft thee an' I, in aught hours gaun. 

On guid March- weather, 
Hae tum'd sax rood beside our ban'. 

For days thegither. 

Thou never braindg't, an' fetch't, an' 

fliskit. 
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit, 
An' spread abreed thy weel-fill'd brisket, 

Wi' pith an' pow'r. 
Till spritty knowes wad rair't and riskit, 

An' slypet owre. 



54 



TO A MOUSE, 



When frosts lay lang, an snaws were 

deep, 
An' threaten'd labour back to l<eep, 
I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap 

Aboon the timmer ; 
I ken'd my Maggie wad na sleep 

For that, or simmer. 

In cart or car thou never reestit ; 

The steyest brae thou wad hae face't it; 

Thou never lap, an' sten't, and breastit, 

Then stood to blaw ; 
But just thy step a wee thing hastit. 

Thou snoov't awa. 

My pleugh is now thy bairn-time a' : 
Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw ; 
Forbye sax raae, I've sell't awa, 

That thou hast nurst : 
They drew me thretteen pund an' twa, 

The vera v/arst. 



Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought, 
An' wi' the weary warl' fought ! 
An' monie an anxious day, I thought 

We wad be beat ! 
Yet here to crazy age we're brought, 

Wi' something yet. 

And think na, my auld, trusty servan', 
That now perhaps thou 's less deservin, 
An' thy auld days may end in starvin, 

For my last fou, 
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane 

Laid by for you. 

We've worn to crazy years thegither ; 
We'll toyte about wi' ane anither ; 
Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether 

To some hain'd rig, 
Whare ye may nobly rax your leather, 

Wi' sma' fatigue. 



TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST 
WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER. 1785. 



Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, 
O, what a panic 's in thy breastie ! 
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 

Wi' bickering brattle ! 
I wad' be laith to rin an' chase thee, 

Wi' murd'ring pattle ! 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken Nature's social union. 
An' justifies that ill opinion. 

Which makes thee startle. 
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, 

An' fellow-mortal ! 

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve j 
What then ? poor beastie, thou maun live ! 
A daimen-icker in a thrave 

'S a sma* request : 
ni get a blessin wi' the lave. 

And never miss't ! 

Thy vvee bit housie, too, in ruin ! 
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin ! 
An' naething, now, to big a new ane, 

^' ^ogg^gc green ! 
An^ bleak December's winds ensuin, 

Baith snell an' keen ! 



Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, 
An' weary winter comin fast, 
An' cozie here, beneath the Ijlast, 

Thou thought to dwell, 
Till crash ! the cruel coulter past. 

Out thro' thy cell. 

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, 
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! 
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble. 

But house or bald. 
To thole the winter's sleety dribble. 

An' cranreuch cauld ! 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain : 
The best laid schemes o* mice an' men 

Gang aft a-gley. 
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 

For promis'd joy. 

Still thou art bles^, compar'd wi' m^ ! 
The present only toucheth thee : 
But) Och ! I backward cast my c'e 

On prospects drear ! 
An' forward, tho* I canna see, 

I guess an* fear ! 



4 WINTER NTCHT. 55 



A WINTER NIGHT. 



Poor naked iuretches, wheresoe'er yoti are, 
Thi\t bide the pelting of this pitiless storm t 
How shall yoiir hoitseless heads , and un/ed sides. 
Your loop'd and ■windo'iv'd raggedness, defend yoit, 
Froin seasotis such as these ? 

SHAKESrEARB. 



When biting Boreas, fell and doure. 
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless boVr ; 
When Phcebus gieS a short-liv'd glov/r. 

Far south the lift, 
Dim-dark'ning thro? the flaky show'r. 

Or whirling drift : 

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked. 
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked, 
While burns, wi' snawy wreefhs up-choked, 

Wild-eddying swirl, 
Or thro' the mining outlet bocked, 

Down headlong hurl. 

Listening, the doors ai>' winnocks rattle, 
I thought me on the ourie cattle. 
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 

O' winter war, 
And thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle^ 

Beneath a scar. 

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing I 
That, in the merry months o' spring. 
Delighted me to hear thee sing. 

What comes o' the 
Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering win 

An' close thy e'e ? 

Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd, 

Lone from your savage liomes exil'd, 

The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoll'd 

My heart forgets, 
While pityless the tempest wild 

Sore on you beats. 

Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign, 
Dark muffl'd, view'd the dreary plain ; 
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, 

Rose in my soul, 
When on my ear this plaintive strain. 

Slow, solemn, stole— 



56 A WINTER NIGHT. 



* Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust ! 

* And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost ! 

* Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows ! 

* Not all your rage, as now, united shows 

* More hard unkindness, unrelenting, 

* Vengeful malice unrepenting, 

*Than heav'n-illumin'd man on brother man bestows I 

* See stem Oppression's iton grip, 

* Or mad Ambition's gory hand, 

* Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, 

* Woe, want, and murder o'er a land ! 

* Ev'n in the peaceful rural vale, 

* Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, 

* How pamper'd Luxury, Flatt'ry by her side, 

* The parasite empoisoning her ear, 

* With all the servile wretches in the rear, 

* Looks o'er proud property, extended wide ; 

* And eyes the simple rustic hind, 

* Whose toil upholds the glitt'ring show, 

* A creature of another kind, 

* Some coarser substance, unrefin'd, 

* Plac'd for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below 



* Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe, 

* With lordly Honour's lofty brow, 

* The pow'rs you proudly own ? 

* Is there, beneath Love's noble name, 

* Can harbour, dark, the selfish a^m, 

* To bless himself alone ! 

* Mark maiden-innocence a prey 

* To love-pretending snares, 

* This boasted honour turns away, 

* Shunning soft pity's rising sway, 

* Regardless of the tears, and unavailing pray'rs ! 
' Perhaps this hour, in misery's squalid nest, 

* She strains your mfant to her joyless breast, 

' And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast ! 



* Oh ye ! who, supk in beds ofdown, 

* Feel not a want but what yourselves create, 

* Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate, 

* Whonv friends and fortune quite disown! 
' Ill-satisfied keen nature's clam'rous call, 

' Stretch'd on his straw he lays himself to sleepe, 
' While thro' the ragged roof and chinky wall, 

* Chill o'er his slumbers, piles the drifty heapj 

* Think on the dungeon's grim confine, 

* Where guilt and poor misfortune pme I 

* Guilt, erring man, relenting view I* 

* But sliall thy legal rage pursue 



EPISTLE TO DA VIE, 



57 



* The wretch, abready crushed low, 

* By cruel fortune's undeserved blow ? 

* Affliction's sons are brothers in distress ; 

* A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss -' ' 

J heard nae mair, for Chanticleer 

Shook off the pouthery snaw, 
And hail'd the morning with a cheer, 

A cottage-rousing craw. 

But deep this truth impress'd my mind — 

Thro' all His works abroad, 
The heart benevolent and kind 

The most resembles God. 



EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER POET. 



Wh!LE winds frae afif Ben-Lomond blaw, 
And bar the doors wi' driving snaw. 

And hing us owre the ingle, 
1 set me down, to pass the time. 
And spin a verse or twa q' rhyme. 

In hamely, westlin jingle. 
While frosty winds blaw in the drift, 

Ben to the chimla lug, 
I grudge a wee the Great-folk's gift, 
Thet live sae bien an' snug : 
I tent less, and want less 
Their roomy fire-side ; 
But hanker and canker, 
To see their cursed pride. 

It's hardly in a body's pow'r, 

To keep, at times, frae being sour. 

To see how things are shar'd ; 
How bfest o' chiels are whyles in want, 
While coofs on countless thousands rant, 

And ken na how to wair't : 
But, Davie, lad. ne'er fash your head, 

Tho' we hae little gear, 
We're fit to win our daily bread. 
As lang's we're hale and fier; 
' Mair spier na, nor fear na,' 

Auld age ne'er mind a feg; 
The last o't, the warst o't, 
Is only but to beg. 

To lie in kilns arid bams at e'en. 
When banes are craz'd; and bluid is thin, 
Is, doubtless, great distress ' 



January — [1784]. 

Yet then content could mak us blest ; 
Ev'n then, sometimes, we'd snatch a taste 

Of truest happiness. 
The honest heart that's free frae a' 

Intended fraud or guile. 
However fortune kick the ba'. 
Has ay some cause to smile : 
And mind still, you'll find still, 

A comfort this nae sma' ; 
N^e mair then, we'll care then, 
Nae farther can we fa'. 

What tho', like commoners of air, 
We wander out, we know not where, 

But either house or hal' ? 
Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods, 
The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, 

Are free alike to all. 
In days when daisies deck the ground, 

And blackbirds whistle clear. 
With honest joy our hearts will bound, 
To see the coming year : 

On braes when we please, then. 

We'll sit and sowth a tune ; 
Syne rhyme till't, we'll time till't. 
And sing't when we hae done. 

It's no in titles nor in rank ; 

It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, 

To purchase peace and rest ; 
It's no in makmg muckle, mair : 
It's no in books, it's no in lear, 

To make us truly blest : 



58 



EPISTLE TO DAVIE. 



If happiness hae not her seat 

And centre in the breast, 
We may be wise, or rich, or great, 
But never can be blest : 
Nae treasures, nor pleasures, 

Could make us happy lang ; 
The heart ay's the part ay, 
That makes us right or wrang. 

Think ye, that sic as you and I, 

Wha drudge and drive thro' w^et an' dry, 

Wi' never-ceasing toil ; 
Think ye, are we less blest than they, 
Wha scarcely tent us in their way. 

As hardly worth their while ? 
Alas ! how aft in haughty mood, 
God's creatures they oppress ! 
Or else, neglecting a' that s guid, 
They riot in excess ! 

Baith careless, and fearless. 
Of either heav'n or hell ! 
Esteeming, and deeming 
It's a' an idle tale ! 

Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce ; 
Nor make our scanty pleasures less, 

By pining at our state ; 
And, even should misfortunes dome, 
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some, 

An's thankfu' for them yet. 
They gie the wit of age to youth ; 

They let us ken oursel ; 
They mak ussee the naked truth. 
The real guid and ill. 
Tho' losses, and crosses, 
Be lessons right severe. 
There's wit there, ye'll get there, 
Ye'll find nae other where. 

But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts ! 
(To say aught less wad wrarig the cartes, 

And flatt'ry I detest) 
This life has joys for you and I ; 
And joys that riches ne'er could buy ; 

And joys the very best. 
There's a' the pleasures o' the heart. 

The lover an' the frien' ; 
Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part. 

And I my darling Jean ! 



It warms me, it charms me. 
To mention' but her name : 

It heats me, it beets me, 
And sets me a' on flame I 

O all ye pow'rs who rule above ! 
O Thou, whose very self art love ! 
Thou know'st my words sincere ! 
The life-blood streaming thro' my heart, 
Or my more dear immortal part, 

Is not more fondly dear ! 
When heart-corroding care and grief 

Deprive my soul of rest. 
Her dear idea brings relief 
And solace to my breast 
Thou Being, All-seeing, 

O hear my fervent pray'r ; 
Still take her, and make her 
Thy most peculiar care ! 

All hail, ye tender feelings dear ! 
The smile of love, the friendly tear, 

The sympathetic glow ! 
Long since, this world's thorny ways 
Had number'd out my weary days. 

Had it not been for you ! 
Fate still has blest me with a fi'lend. 

In every care and ill ; 
And oft a more endearing band, 
A tie more tender still. 
It lightens, it brightens 
The tenebrific scene. 
To meet with, and greet with 
My Davie or my Jean. 

O, how that name inspires my style ! 
The words come skelpin, rank and file, 

Amaist before I ken ! 
The ready measure rins as fine. 
As Phoebus and the famous Nine 

Were glowrin owre my pen. 
My spaviet Pegasus will limp, 

Till ance he's fairly het ; 
And then he'll hilcli, and stilt, and jimp, 
fVn' rin an unco fit : 
But lest then, the beast then, 
Should rue this hasty ride, 
I'll light now, and dight now 
His sweaty, wizen'd hide. 



THE LAMENT. 



59 



THE LAMENT, 

OCCASIONED BV THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE OF A FRIEND'S AMOUR. 



Alas I hovi eft does Goodness luontid itfielf, 

A ltd sweet Affection prove t/te spring pj woe I 



Home. 



THOO pale Orb, that silent shines, 
"While care-untroubled mortals sleep 1 

Thou jseest a wretch that inly pines, 
And wanders here to wail and weep I 

With woe I nightly vigils keep. 
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam ; 

And mourn, in lamentation deep, 
Hqw life and love are all a dream. 

1 joyless view thy rays adorn 

The faintly marked, distant hill • 
I joyless view thy trembling horn. 

Reflected in the gurgling rill : 
My fondly-fluttering heart, be still ! 

Thou busy po w'r, Remembrance, cease ! 
Ah ! must the agonizing thrill 

For ever bar returning peace ! 

No idly-feign'd poetic pains, 

My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim ; 
No shepherd's pipe— ^Arcadian strains ; 

No fabled tortures, quaint and tame : 
The plighted faith ; the mutual flame ; 

The oft attested Pow'rs above ; 
The promis'd father's tender name : 

These were the pledges of my love ! 

Encircled in her clasping arms, 

How have the raptur'd moments flown! 
How have I wish'd for fortune's charms. 

For her dear sake, and her's alone ! 
And must I think it ! is she gone. 

My secret heart's exulting boast ? 
And does she heedless hear my groan ? 

And is she ever, ever lost ? 

Oh !' can she bear so base a heart, 
*So lost to honour, lost to truth. 



As from the fondest lover pari. 

The plighted husband of her youth 1 
Alas ! life's path may be unsmooth ! 

Her way may lie thro' rough distress ! 
Then, who her pangs and pains will 
soothe, 
Her sorrows share, and make them 
less ? 

Ye winged hours that o'er us past, 

Enraptur'd more, the more enjoy'd, 
Your dear remembrance in my breast, 

My fondly-treasur'd thoughts em- 
ploy'd. 
That breast, how dreaiy now, and void, 

For her too scanty once of room ! 
Ev'n ev'ry ray of hope destroy 'd, 

And not a wish to gild the gloom ! 

The mom that warns th* approaching 
day. 

Awakes me up to toil and woe : 
I see the hours in long array, 

That I must suffer, lingering, slow. 
Full many a pang, and many a throe, 

Keen recollection's direful train, 
Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low, 

Shall kiss the distant, western main: 

And when my nightly couci\ I try, 

Sore-harass'd out with care and grief, 
My toil-beat nerves, and tearrworn eye. 

Keep watchings with the nightly thief: 
Or if I slumber, Fancy, chie^ 

Reigns, haggard-wild, in sore affright : 
Ev'n day, all-bitter, brings relief, 

From such a horror-breathing night. 



6o 



DESPONDENCY. 



O ! thou bright Queen, who o'er th* 
expanse [sway I 

Now highest reign'st, with boundless 
Oft has thy silent-marking glance 

Observ'd us, fondly-wand'ring, stray ! 
The time, unheeded, sped away, 

While love's luxurious pulse beat high, 
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, 

To mark the mutual-kindling eye. 



Oh ! scenes in strong remembrance 
set! 

Scenes, never, never to return ! 
Scenes, if in stupor I forget, 

Again I feel, again I burn ! 
From ev'ry joy and pleasure torn, 

Life's weaiy vale I'll wander thro' ; 
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn 

A faithless woman's broken vow. 



despondency; 



AN ODE. 



Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with 

care, 
A burden more than I can bear, 

I set me down and sigh : 
O life ! thou art a galling load, 
Along a rough, a weary road. 

To wretches such as I ! 
Dim-backward as I cast my view, 
What sick'ning scenes appear ! 
What sorrows yet may pierce me thro', 
Too justly I Jtnay fear ! 
StiH caring, despairing, 

Must be my bitter doom ; 
My woes here shall close ne'er. 
But with the closing tomb ! 

Happy, ye sons of busy life, 
Who, equal to the bustling strife, 

No other view regard ! 
Ev'n when the wished end's deny'd. 
Yet while the busy means are pl/d, 

They bring their own reward : 
Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight, 

Unfitted with an aim, 
Meet ev'ry sad returning night. 
And joyless morn the same ; 
You, bustling, and justling, 

Forget each grief and pain ; 
I, listless, yet restless. 
Find every prospect vain. 

How blest the Solitary's lot, 
Who, all -forgetting, all-forgot. 

Within his humble cell. 
The cavern wild with tangling roots, 
Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits, 

B-side his crystal well? 



Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought, 

By unfrequented stream. 
The ways of men are distant brought, 
A faint-collected dream : 
While praising, and raising 

His thoughts to Heav'n on high, 
As wand'ring, meand'ring, 
He views the solemn sky. 

Than I, no lonely hermit plac'd 
Wheie never human footstep trac'd. 

Less fit to play the part ; 
The lucky moment to improve, 
And just to stop, and just to move. 

With self-respecting art : 
But ah ! those pleasures, loves, and joys, 

Which I too keenly taste. 
The Solitary can despise, 
Can want, and yet be blest ! 
He needs not, he heeds not, 

Or human love or hate, 
Whilst I here, must cry here, 
At perfidy ingrate ! 

Oh ! enviable, early days, [maze, 

W-hen dancing thoughtless pleasure's 

To care, to guilt unknown ! 
How ill exchang'd for riper times. 
To fee the follies, or the crimes, 

Of others, or my own ! 
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport. 

Like linnets in the bush, 
Ye little know the ills ye court. 
When manhood is your wish ! 
The losses, the crosses. 

That active man engage ! 
The fears all, the tears all. 
Of dim-declining age 



TBE COTTER'S SA TURD A V NIGHT. 



6i 



WINTER. 

A DIRGE. 



The wintry west extends his blast, 

And hail and rain does blaw ; 
Or. the stormy north sends driving forth, 

The blinding sleet and snaw : 
While, tumbling brown, the burn cornea 
down, • 

And roars frae bank to brae : 
And bird and beast in covert rest, 

And pass the heartless day. 

•' The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast," 

The joyless winter-day. 
Let others fear, to me more dear 

Than all the pride of May : 



The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul. 

My griefs it seems to join ; 
The leafless trees my faney please, 

Their fate resembles mine ! 

Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty 
scheme 

These woes of mine fulfil, 
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best, 

Because they are Thy will ! 
Then all I want, (Oh ! do thou grant 

This one request of mine !) 
Since to enjoy thou dost deny, 

Assist me to resign. 



THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 



INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. OF AYR. 

Let not Ambitiofi mock tJteir useful toil. 
Their Iwmely joys, and destiny obscure ; 

Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful S7nile, 
The short and simple annals of tlie Poor. 

Gray. 

My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend I 

No mercenary bard his homage pays : 
Wirli honest pride, I scorn each selfish end ; 

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise : 
To you 1 smg, in simple Scottish lays. 

The lowly tram in life's scquester'd scene ; 
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; 

What Aiken in a cottage would have been; 
Ah • tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, 1 ween. 

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 

The short'ning winter-day Is near a close ; 
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ; 

The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose : 
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, 

This night his weekly moil is at an end. 
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 

Hoping the mom in case and rest to spend, 
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend 



62 THE -CO TTER'S SA IVRD^i Y NIGHT. 



At length his lonely cot appears in view. 

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through 

To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee. 
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie, 

His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, 
The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, 
An' makes him quite forget his labour an* his toil. 

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in. 

At service out, amang the farmers roun' ; 
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie tin 

A cannie errand to a neebor town : 
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown. 

In youthfu' bloom, love. sparkling in her e'e. 
Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown, 

Or deposite her sair-won penny -fee. 
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 

With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet. 

An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers : 
The social hours, swift-wing'd, tmnotic'd fleet ; 

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears ; 
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; 

Anticipation forward points the view. 
The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheeis. 

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; 
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due 

Their master's an' their mistress's command. 

The younkers a* are warned to obey ; 
An* mind their labours wi' an eydent hand. 

An' ne'er, tho' out o* sight, to jauk or play": 
Ati* O ! be sure to fear the Lord alway, 

* Aa* mind your duty, duly, mom an' night ! 
Ltcst in temptation's path ye gang astray. 

Implore His counsel and assisting might : 
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright !' 

But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door , 

Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same. 
Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor. 

To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
The wily mother sees the conscious flame 

Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; 
Wi' heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name. 

While Jenny hafiflins is afraid to speak ; 
Weel pleas'd the mother hears, it's nae wild, Worthless rake. 

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben ; 
A strappan youth ; he takes the mother's eye; 



THE CO TTER '5 SA TURD A Y NIGHT. 63 

Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en ; 

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. 
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, 

But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave ; 
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave ; 
Weel-pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave. 

O happy love ! where love like this is found ! 

O heart-felt raptures ! bliss beyond compare ! 
I've paced much this weary, mortal round, 

And sage experience bids me this declare — 
* If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare. 

One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair. 

In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, 
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale. 

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart — 

A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth X 
That ean, with studied, sly, ensnaring art. 

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 
Curse on his perjur'd arts ! dissembling smooth ! 

Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd ? 
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, 

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child ? 
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild ! 

But now the supper crowns their simple board. 

The healsome parritch, chief o* Scotia's food : 
The soupe their only Hawkie does afford, 

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood ; 
The dame brings forth in complimental mood. 

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell. 
An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid ; 

The frugal wifie,- garrulous, will tell, 
How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was 1' the bell. 

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 

They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace. 

The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride x 
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, 

His lyart haffets wearing thin an* bare ; 
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide. 

He wales a portion with judicious care, 
And * Let us worship God ! ' he says, with solemn air. 

They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim : 
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise. 

Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name j 



64 THE CO TTER 'S SA TURD A Y NIGHT 

Or noble Elgin beets the heav'nward flame. 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame ; 

The tickl'd ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 

How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
Or how the royal Bard did groaning lie 

Beneath the stroke of. Heaven's avenging ire ; 
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; 

Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre; 

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, 

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ; 
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name. 

Had not on earth whereon to lay His head ; 
How His first followers and servants sped J 

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : 
How he, who lone in Patmos banished. 

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; 
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command. 

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
Hope * springs exulting on triumphant wing,* 

That thus they all shall meet in future days : 
There ever bask in uncreated rays, 

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 
Together hymning their Creator's praise. 

In such society, yet still more dear ; 
"While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere. 

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride, 

In all the pomp of method, and of art, 
When men display to congregations wide 

Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart ! 
The Power, incens'd, the pageant will desert. 

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; 
But haply, in some cottage far apart, 

May hear; well pleas' d, the language of the soul ; 
And in his Bodk of Life the inmates poor enroL 

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way ; 

The youngling cottagers retire to rest : 
The parent-pair their secret homage pay. 

And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request. 
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest. 

And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 



65 



Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 
For them and for their little ones provide ; 
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. 

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 

That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad : 
Princes and lords ai^e but the breath of kings, 

* An honest man's the noblest work of God :* 
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, 

The cottage leaves the palace far behind ; 
What is a lordling's pomp ? a cumbrous load. 

Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd ! 

O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! 
And, Oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent 

From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ; 
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 

A virtuous populace may rise the while. 
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd Isle. 

O Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide 

That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart ; 
Who dar'd to, nobly, stem tyrannic pride, 

Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
(The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art. 

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward !) 
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert. 

But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard. 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 



A DIRCE. 



When chill November's surly blast 

Made fields and forests bare, 
One ev'ning as I wander'd forth 

Along the banks of Ayr, 
T spy'd a man, whose aged step 

Seem'd weary, worn with care ; 
His face was furrow'd o'er with years, 

And hoaiy was his hair. 

Young stranger, whither wand' rest thou? 

Began the rev' rend Sage ; 
Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, 

Or youthful oleasure's rage ? 
B 



Or, haply, prest with cares and wocSi 
Too soon thou hast began 

To wander forth, with me, to mourn 
The miseries of Man. 

The sun that overhangs yon moots, 

Out-spreading far and wide, 
Where hundreds labour to support 

A haughty lordling's pride ; 
I've seen yon weary winfcr-sun 

Twice forty times return ; 
And ev'ry time has added proofs, 

That Man was made to mourn. 



66 



J PRAYER. 



O man ! while in thy early years, 

How prodigal of time ! 
Mis-spending all thy precious hours, 

Thy glorious youthful prime ! 
Alternate follies take the sway ; 

Licentious passions bum ; 
Which tenfold force give nature's law, 

That Man was made to mourn. 

Look not alone on youthful prime, 

Or manhood's active might ; 
Man then is useful to his kind, 

Supported is his right, 
But see him on the edge of life, 

With cares and sorrows worn, 
Then age and want, Oh ! ill-match'd 
pair ! 

Show Man was made to mourn. 

A few seem favourites of fate, 

In pleasure's lap carest ; 
Yet, think not all the rich and great 

Are likewise truly blest. 
But, Oh ! what crowds in ev'ry land 

Are wretched and forlorn ; 
Thro' weary life this lesson learn, 

That Man was made to mourn. 

Many and sharp the num'rous ills 

Inwoven with our frame ! 
More pointed still we make ourselves. 

Regret, remorse, and shame ! 
And man, whose heaven-erected face 

The smiles of love adorn, 
Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn ! 



See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight, 

So abject, mean, and vile, 
Who begs a brother of the earth 

To give him leave to toil ; 
And see his lordly fellow-worm 

The poor petition spurn. 
Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife 

And helpless offspring mourn. 

If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave, 

By nature's law design'd, 
Why was an independent wish 

E'er planted in my mind ? 
If not, why am I subject to 

His cruelty, or scorn ? 
Or why has man the will and pow'r • 

To make his fellow mourn ? 

Yet, let not this too much, my son, 

Disturb thy youthful breast ; 
This partial view of human-kind 

Is surely not the last ! 
The poor, oppressed, honest man, 

Had never, sure, been born, 
Had there not been some recompense 

To comfort those that mourn ! 

O Death ! the poor man's dearest friend, 

The kindest and the best ! 
Welcome the hour my aged limbs 

Are laid with thee at rest ! 
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow. 

From pomp and pleasure torn ; 
But, Oh ! a blest relief to those 

That weary-laden mourn ! 



A PRAYER, IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 



O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause 

Of all my hope and fear ! 
In whose dread presence, ere an hour, 

Perhaps I must appear ! 

If I have wander'd in those paths 

Of life I ought to shun ; 
As something, loudly in my breast, 

Remonstrates I have done ; 

Thou know'st that Thou hast form'd me 
With passions wild and strong ; 



And list'ning to their witching voice 
Has often led me wrong. 

Where human weakness has come short 

Or frailty stept aside, 
Do thou, All-Good! for such Thou art 

In shades of darkness hide. 

Where with intention I have err'd, 

No other plea I have. 
But, Thou art good ; and Goodness still 

Delighteth to forgive.. 



LIMES. 



H 



STANZAS ON THE SAME OCCASION. 

Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene ? 

Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ? 
iSome drops of joy with draughts of ill between : 

Some gleams of sunshine !mid renewing storms ; 
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms ? 

Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark.abode? 
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms ; 

I tremble to approach an angry God, 
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod* 

Fain would I say, * Forgive my foul offence !* 

Fain promise never more to disobey ; 
But, should my Author* health again dispense, 

Again I might desert fair virtue's way ; 
Again in folly's path might go astray ; 

Again exalt the brute, and sink the man ; 
Then how should I for Heavenly mercy pray, 

Who act so counter Heavenly mercy's plan ? 
Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran ? 

O Thou, great Governor of all below ! 

\i I may dare a lifted eye to Thee, 
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, 

And still the tumult of the raging sea : 
With that controlling pow'r assist ev'n me. 

Those headlong furious passions to confine, 
For all unfit I feel my powers to be, 

To rule their torrent in th' allowed line ; 
O, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine ! 



LYING AT A REVEREND FRIEND'S HOUSE ONE NIGHT 

THE AUTHOR LEFT THE POLLOWINC VERSES IN THE ROOM 
WHERE HE SLEPT. 



O Thou dread Pow'r, who reign 'st above, 
I know Thou wilt me hear ; 

When for this scene of peace and love, 
I make my pray'r sincere. 

The lioary sire— the mortal stroke, 
I-ong, long, be pleas'd to spare ; 

To bless his little filial flock, 
And show what good men are. 

She, wh3 her lovely offspring eyes 
With tender hopes and fears, 

O, bless her with a mother's joys. 
But spare a mother's tears ! 



Theirhope,theirstay, their darlingyouth, 
In manhood's dawning blush ; 

Bless him, thou God of love and truth 
Up to a parent's wish. 

The beauteous, seraph sister-band. 

With earnest tears I pray. 
Thou know st the snares on ev'ry hand. 

Guide Thou their steps alway. 

When soon or late they reach tha?: coast, 
O'er life's rough ocean driven, 

May they rejoice, no wand'rer lost, 
A family in Heaven ! 



68 



SIX VERSES OF THE NINETIETH PSALM. 



THE FIRST PSALM. 



The man, in life wherever plac'd, 

Hath happiness in store, 
Who walks not in the wicked's way, 

Nor learns their gwilty lore : 

Nor from the seat of scornful pride 
Casts forth his eyes abroad, 

But, with humility and awe 
Still walks before his God. 

That man shall flourish like the trees 
Which by the streamlets grow ; 



The fruitful top is spread on high, 
And firm the root below. 

But he whose blossom buds in guilt 
Shall to the ground be cast, 

And like the rootless stubble tost. 
Before the sweeping blast. 

For why ? that God the good adore 
Hath giv'n them peace and rest, 

But hath decreed that wicked men 
Shall ne'er be truly blest* 



A PRAYER, UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT 

ANGUISH. 



O Thou great Being ! what Thou art 

Surpasses me to know . 
Yet siire I am, that krtown to Thee 

Are all Thy works below. 

Thy creature here before Thee stands, 
AH wretched and distrest ; 

Yet sure those ills that wrmg my soul 
Obey Thy high behest. 



Sure, Thou, Almighty, canst not act 

From cruelty or wrath ! 
O, free my weary eyes from tears. 

Or close them fast in death • 

But if I must afflicted be. 
To suit some wise design i 

Then, man my soul with firm resolves 
Ta bear and not repine ! 



THE FIRST SIX VERSES OF THE NINETIETH PSALM. 



O Thou, the first, 'the greatest friend 

Of all the human race ! 
Whose strong right hand has ever been 

Their stay and dwelling-place ! 

Before the mountains heav'd their heads 
Beneath Thy forming hand, 

Before this ponderous globe itself 
Arose at Thy command ; 

That pow'r which rais'dand still upholds 

This universal frame, 
From countless, unbeginning time 

Was ever still the same. 

Those mighty periods of years 
Which seem to us so vast. 



Appear no more before Thy sight 
Than yesterday that's past. 

Thou giv'st the word ; Thy creature, man, 

Is to existence brought ; 
Again Thou say'st, ' Ye sons of men. 

Return ye into nought ! * 

Thou layest them, with all their cares, 

In everlasting sleep ; 
As with a flood thou tak'st them off 

With overwhelming sweep. 

They -flourish like the morning flow'r. 

In beauty's pride array'd ; 
But long ere night cut down it lies 

All wither'd and decay'd. 



TO RUIN. 



69 



TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, I786. 



Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, 
Thou 's met me in an evil hour ; 
For I maun crush amang the stoure 

Thy slender stem. 
To spare thee now is past my pow'r, 

Thou bonie gem. 

Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, 
The bonie Lark, companion meet ! 
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet ! 

\Vi' sprecicl'd breast. 
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet 

The purpling east. 

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
Upon thy early, humble birth ; 
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 

Amid the storm, 
Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth 

Thy tender form. 

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield, 
High sheltering woods and wa's maun 

shield, 
But thou, beneath the random bield 
O' clod or stane. 
Adorns the histie stibble-field, 

Unseen, alane. 

There, in thy scanty mantle clad. 
Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, 



Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise ; 

But now the share uptears thy bed, 

And low thou lies I 

Such is the fate of artless Maid, 
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade I 
By love's simplicity betray'd. 

And guileless trust, 
Till she, like thee, all spil'd, is laid 

Low i' the dust. 

Such is the fate of simple Bard, 

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd ! 

Unskilful he to note the card 

Of prudent lore. 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 

And whelm him o'er ! 

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n. 
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n. 
By human pride or cunning driv'n 

To mis'ry's brink. 
Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n, 

He, ruin'd, sink ! 

Ev'n thou who moum'st the Daisy's fate. 
That fate is thine — no distant date ; 
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, 

Full on thy bloom, 
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, 

Shall be thy doom ! 



TO RUIN. 



All hail ! inexorable lord ! 

At whose destruction-breathing word 

The mightiest empires fall ! 
Thy cruel, woe-delighted train, 
The ministers of grief and pain, 

A sullen welcome, all • 
With stern-resolv'd, despairing eye, 

I see each aimed dart ; 
For one has cut my dearest tic. 
And quivers in my heart. 
Then low'ring, and pouring, 

The storm no more I dread ; 
Tho' thick'ning and black'ning 
Round my devoted head. 



And, thou grim pow'r, by life abhorr'd, 
While life a pleasure can afford, 

Oh ! hear a wretch's pray'r ! 
No more I shrink appall'd, afraid ; 
I court, I beg thy friendly aid, 
To close this scene of care ! 
When shall my soul, in silent peace, 

Resign life's jo/iess day ; 
My weary heart its throbbings cease, 
Cold-mould'ring in the clay ? 
No fear more, no tear more. 

To stain my lifeless face, 
Enclasped, and grasped 
Within thy cold embrace J 



70 



EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND. 



TO MISS LOGAN, WITH BEATTIE'S POEMS, 

FOR A NEW year's GIFT, JANUARY I, I787.. 



Again the silent wheels of time 
Their annual round have driv'n, 

And you, tho' scarce in maiden prime, 
Are so much nearer Heav'n. 

No gifts have I from Indian coasts 
The infant year to hail ; 



I send you more than India boasts. 
In Edwin's simple tale. 

Our sex with guile and faithless love 
Is charg'd, perhaps too true ; 

But may, dear Maid, each lover prove 
An Edwin still to you ! 



EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND. 



MAY, 1786. 



I LANG hae thought, my youthfu' friend, 

A something to have sent you, 
Tho' it should serve nae ither end 

Than just a kind memento ; 
But how the subject theme may gang. 

Let time and chance determine ; 
Perhaps, it may turn out a sang, 

Perhaps, turn out a sermon. 

Ye'll try the' world soon, my lad. 

And, Andrew dear, believe me, 
Ye'll find mankind an unco squad. 

And muckle they may grieve ye : 
For care and trouble set your thought, 

Ev'n when your end 's attained ; 
And a' your views may come to nought. 

Where ev'ry nerve is strained. 

I'll no say, men are villains a' ; 

The real, harden'd wicked, 
Wlia hae nae check but human law, 

Are to a few restricked : 
But Och ! mankind are unco weak. 

An' little to be trusted ; 
If self the wavering balance shake. 

It's rarely right adjusted ! 

Yet they wha fa' in fortune's strife, 

Their fate we. should na censure, 
For still th' important end of life 

They equally may answer ; 
A man may hae an honest heart, 

Tho' poortith hourly stare him ; 
A man may tak a neebor's part, 

Yet hae nae cash to spare him. 



Aye free, afif han* your story tell. 

When wi' a bosom crony ; 
But still keep something to yoursel 

Ye scarcely tell to ony. 
Gonceal yoursel as "weel's ye can 

Frae critical dissection ; 
But keek thro' ev'ry other man, 

Wi' shai-pen'd, sly inspection. 

The sacred loAve o' w^eel-plac'd love, 

Luxuriantly 'indulge it ; 
But never tempt th' illicit rove, 

Tho' naething should divulge it ; 
I wave the quantum o' the sin. 

The hazard o' concealing ; 
But Och ! it hardens a' within, 

And petrifies the feeling ! 

To catch dame Fortune's golden smile. 

Assiduous wait upon her ; 
And gather gear by ev'ry wile 

That's justify'd by honour ; 
Not for to hide it in a hedge. 

Nor for a train attendant ; 
But for the glorious privilege 

Of being independent. 

The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip. 

To baud the wretch in order "j 
But where ye feel your honour grip, 

Let that aye be your border : 
Its slightest touches, instant pause — 

Debar a' side pretences ; 
And resolutely keep its laws. 

Uncaring consequences. 



ON A SCOTCH BARD. 



71 



The great Creator to revere, 

Must sure become tlie creature ; 
But still the preaching cant forbear, 

And ev'n the rigid feature : 
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range. 

Be xiomplaisance extended ; 
An Atheist-laugh's a poor exchange 

For -Deity offended ! 

When ranting round in pleasure's -ring, 

Religion may be blinded ; 
Or if she gie a random sting, 

It may be little minded ; 



But when on life we're tempest-driv'n, 
A conscience but a canker — 

A correspondence fix'd wi' Heav'n 
Is sure a noble anchor ! 

Adieu, dear, amiable Youth ! 

Your heart can ne'er be wanting ! 
May prudence, fortitude, and truth, 

Erect your brow undaunting ! 
In ploughman phrase, ' God send you 

Still daily to grow wiser ; [speed,' 
And may ye better reck the rede, 

Than ever did th' Adviser I 



ON A SCOTCH BARD, GONE TO THE WEST INDIES. 



A' YE wha live by sowps o' drink, 
A' ye wha live by crambo-clink, 
A' ye wha live an' never think, 

Come mourn wi* me ! 
Our billie's gi'en us a' a jink. 

An' owre the sea. 

Lament him a' ye rantiii core, 
Wha dearly like a randomrsplore, 
Nae mair he'll join the merry roar. 

In social key ; 
For now he's taen anither shore. 

An' owre the sea ! 

The bonie lasses weel may wiss him. 
And in their dear petitions place him : 
The widows, wives, an' a' may bless him, 

Wi' tearfu' e'e ; 
For weel I wat they'll sairly miss him 

That's owre the sea ! 

O Fortune, tliey hae room to grumble ! 
riadstthou taen aff some drowsy bummlc, 
Wlia can do nought but fyke a'n' fumble, 

'Twad been nae plea ; 
But he was gleg as onie wumble, 

That's owre the sea ! 

Auld, cantie Kyle may weepers wear, 
An' stain them wi' the saut, saut tear : 
'Twill mak her poor, auld heart, I fear, 

In flinders flee ; 
He was her Laureat monie a year 

That's owre the sea t 



He saw misfortune's cauld nor-west 
Lang mustering up a bitter blast ; 
A jillet brak his heart at last, 

III may she be ! 
So, took a berth afore the mast, 

An' owre the sea. 

To tremble under Fortune's cummock, 
On scarce a bellyfu' o' drummock, 
Wi' his proud, independent stomadi, 

Could ill agree ; 
So, row't his hurdies in a hammock, 

An' owre the sea. 

He ne'er was gi'en to great misguidin', 
Yet coin his pouches wad na bide in ; 
Wi' him it ne'er was under hidin'. 

He dealt it free : 
The Muse was a' that he took pride in, 

That's owre the sea. 

Jamaica bodies, use him weel. 
An' hap hmi in a cozie bicl ; 
Ye'll find him ay' a dainty chiel, 

And fu' o' glee ; 
He wad na wrang'd the vera dell, 

That's owre the sea. 

Fareweel, my rhyme-composing billie ! 
Your native soil was right ill-willie; 
But may ye flourish like a lily, 

Now bonilie I 
I'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie, 

Tho' owre the sea i 



72 



A DEDICATION. 



TO A HAGGIS. 



Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, 
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race ! 
A boon them a* ye tak your place, 

Painch, tripe, or thairm : 
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace 

As lang's my arm. 

The groaning trencher there ye fill. 
Your hurdies like a distant hill. 
Your pin wad help to mend a mill 

In time o' need. 
While thro' your pores the dews distil 

Like amber bead. 

His knife see rustic labour dight, 
An' cut you up wi' ready slight, 
Trenching your gushing entrails bright 

Like onie ditch ; 
And then, O what a glorious sight, 

Warm-reekin, rich ! 

Then, hom for horn they stretch an* 

strive, 
Deil tak the hindmost, on" they drive. 
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes bely ve 

Are bent like drums; 
Tlien auld guidman, maist like to rive, 
Bethankit hums. 



is there- that o'er his French ragout, 
Or olio that wad staw a sow. 
Or fricassee wad mak her spew 

Wi' perfect sconner, 
Looks down wi' sneering, scomfu' view 

On sic a dinner *! 

Poor devil ! see him owre his trash, 

As feckless as a wither'd rash. 

His spindle shank a guid whip-lash. 

His nieve a nit : 
Thro' bloody flood or field to dash, 

O how unfit \ 

But mark the rustic, haggis-fed. 

The trembling earth resounds his tread. 

Clap in his walie hieve a blade. 

He'll mak it whissle ; 
An' legs, an' arms, an' heads will sned. 

Like taps o' thrissle. 

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care, 
And dish them out their bill o' fare, 
Auld Scotland wants nae stinking ware 

That jaups in luggies ; 
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer, 

Gie her a Haggis ! 



A DEDICATION TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. 



Expect na, Sir, in this narration, 
A fleechin, fleth'rin Dedication, 
To roose you up, an' ca' you guid. 
An' sprung o' great an' noble bluid. 
Because ye're sirnam'd like his Grace, 
Perhaps related to the race ; 
Then when I'm tir d — and sae are ye, 
Wi' mony a fulsome, sinfu' lie, 
Set up a face, how I stop short. 
For fear your modesty be hurt. 

This may do'— maun do, Sir, wi' them 
wha [fou ; 

Maun please the great folk for a wame- 
For me ! sae laigh I needna bow. 



For, Lord be thankit, I can plough ; 
And when I downa yoke a naig,^ 
Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg ; 
Sae I shall say, an' that's nae flatt'rin. 
It's just siq Poet an' sic Patron. 

The Poet, some guid angel help him. 
Or else, I fear, some ill ane skelp him ! 
He may do weel for a' he's done yet, 
But only — he's no just begun yet. 

The Patron (Sir, ye maun forgie me, 
I vvinna lie, come what will o' me). 
On ev'ry hand it will allow'd be, 
He's iust — nae better than he should be. 



A DEDICATION. 



73 



I readily and freely grant, 
He dowha see a poor man want ; 
What's no his ain he winna tak it. 
What ance he says he winna break it ; 
Ought he can lend he'll not refus't, 
Till aft his guidness is abus'd ; 
And rascals whyles that do him wrang, 
Ev'n that, he does na mind it lang : 
As master, landlord, husband, father. 
He does na fail his part in either. 

But then, nae thanks to him for a 
that ;' 
Nae godly symptom ye can ca' that ; 
It's naething but a milder feature 
Of our poor, sinfu', corrupt nature : 
Ye'll get the best o' moral works, 
'Mang black Gentoos and pagan Turks, 
Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi, 
Wha never heard of orthodoxy. 
That he's the poor man's friend in need. 
The gentleman in word and deed. 
It's no thro* terror of damnation ; 
It's just a carnal inclination. 

Morality, thou deadly bane. 
Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain ! 
Vain is his hope, whase stay and trust is 
In moral mercy, truth, and justice ! 

No — stretch a point to catch a plack ; 
Abuse a brother to his back ; 
Steal thro' the winnock frae a whore. 
But point the rake that taks the door : 
Be to the poor like onie whunstane. 
And haud their noses to the grunstane, 
Ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving ; 
No matter — stick to sound believing. 

Learn three-mile pray'rs, an' half- 
mile graces, 
Wi' weel-spread looves, an' lang, wry 

faces ; 
Grunt up a solemn, lengthen'd gioan, 
And damn a' parties but your own ; 
I'll warrant then, ye 're nae deceiver, 
A steady, sturdy, staunch believer. 

O ye wha leave the springs of Calvin, 
For ^jumlie dubs of your ain delvin ! 
Ye s( ns of heresy and error, 
Ye'll >ome dav squeel in qu king terror ! 



When vengeance draws the sword in 

wrath. 
And in the fire throws the sheath ; 
When Ruin, with his sweeping besom. 
Just frets till Heav'n commission gies 

him : 
While o'er the harp pale m is'ry moans, ) 
And strikes tlie ever-deep'ning tones, > 
Still louder shrieks, and heavier groans ! ) 

Your pardon, Sir, for this digression, 
I maist forgat my Dedication ; 
But when divinity comes 'cross me, 
My readers still are sure to lose. me. 

So, Sir, ye see 'twas nae daft vapour, 
But I maturely thought it proper, 
When a' my works I did review. 
To dedicate them. Sir, to You : 
Because (ye need na tak it ill) 
I thought them something like yoursel. 

Then patlronize them wi' your favour. 
And your petitioner shall ever — 
I had amaist said, ever pray : 
But that's a word I need na say : 
For prayin I hae little skill o't ; 
I'm baith dead-sweer, an' wretched 

ill o't ; 
But I'se repeat each poor man's pray'r. 
That kens or hears about you, Sir. — 

* May ne'er misfortune's gowling bailt 
Howl thro' the dwelling o' the Clerk .' 
May ne'er his gen'rous, honest heart, 
For that same gen'rous spirit smart ! 
May Kennedy's far-honour'd name 
Lang beet his hymeneal flame. 
Till Hamiltons, at least a dizen, 
Are frae their nuptial labours risen : 
Five bonie lasses round their table, 
And seven braw fellows, stout an' able, 
To serve their King and Country weel, 
By word, or pen, or pointed steel ! 
May health and peace, with mutual rays, 
Shine on the evening o' his days ; 
Till his wee, curlie John's ier-oe, ) 

When ebbing life nae mair shall flow, > 
The last, sad, mournful rites bestow ! ' ) 

I will not wind a lang conclusion, 
Wi' complimentary eflusion : 



74 



TO A LOUSE. 



But whilst your wishes and endeavours 
Are blest with Fortune's -smiles and 

favour^, 
I am, dear Sir, with zeal most fervent, 
Your much indebted, humble servant. 

But if (which Pow'rs above prevent) 
That iron-hearted carl, "Want, 
Attended in his grim advances. 
By sad mistakes, and black mischances, 
While hopes, and joys, and pleasures 
fly him, 



Make you as poor a dog as I am, 
Your humble servant then no more ; 
For -who would humbly ser\e the poor ? 
But, by a poor man's hopes in Heav'n ! 
While recollection's pow'r is given, 
If, in the vale of humble life. 
The victim sad of fortune's strife, 
I, thro' the tender gushing tear, 
Should recognise my Master dear. 
If friendless, low, we meet together. 
Then, Sir, your hand — my Friend and 
Brother ! 



TO A LOUSE, ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY'S BONNET, 

AT CHURCH. 



Ha ! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie ! 
Your impudence protects you sairly : 
I cauna say but ye strunt rarely, 

Owre gauze and lace ; 
Tho* faith, I fear ye dine but sparely 

On sic a place. 

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner. 
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner, 
How dare ye set your fit upon her, 

Sae fine a lady ! 
Gae somewhere else, and seek your 
dinner 

On some poor body. 

Swith, in, some beggar's haffet squattle ; 
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and 

sprattle 
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle. 

In shoals and nations ; 
Whare horn nor bane ne'er dare unsettle 

Your thick plantations. 

Now haud ye there, ye're out o' sight. 
Below the fatt'rels, snug an' tight ; 
Na, faith ye yet ! ye' 11 no be right 

Till ye've got on it, 
The vera tapmost, tow'ring height 

O' Miss's bonnet. 



My sooth 1 right bauld ye set your nose 

out. 
As plump and gray as onie grozet ; 

for some rank, mercurial rozet, 

Or fell, red smeddum, 
•I'd gie you sic a hearty doze o't, 

Wad dress your droddum ^ 

1 wad na been surpris'd to spy 
You on an auld wife's flainen toy; 
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, 

On 's wyliecoat ; 
But Miss's fine Lunardi ! fie. 

How daur ye do't ? 

O, Jenny, dinna toss your head. 
An' set your beauties a' abread \ 
Ye little ken what cursed speed 

The blastie's makin! 
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread, 

Are notice takin.! 

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as others see us ! 
It, wad frae monie a blunder free us 

And foolish notion : 
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e usj 

And ev'n Devotion ! 



EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIK. 



7S 



ADDRESS TO EDirTBURGH. 



EDINA ! Scotia's darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs, 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat Legislation's sov'reign pow'rs ! 
From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs, 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, 
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, 

I shelter in thy honour'd shade. 

Here Wealth still swells the golden tide, 

As busy Trade his labours plies ; 
There Architecture's noble pride 

Bids elegance and splendour rise ; 
Here Justice, from her native skies, 

High wields her balance and her rpd ; 
There Learning, with his eagle eyes. 

Seeks Science in her coy abode. 

Thy sons, Edina, social, kind. 

With open arms the stranger hail ; 
Their views enlarg'd, their lib'ral mind, 

Above the narrow, rural vale ; 
Attentive still to sorrow's wail. 

Or modest merit's silent claim : 
And never may their sources fail ! 

And never envy blot their name ! 

Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn, 

Gay as the gilded summer sky, 
Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn, 

Dear as the raptur'd thrill of joy ! 
Fair Burnet strikes th* adoring eye. 

Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine , 
I see the Sire of Love on high, 

And own his work indeed divine ! 



There watching high the least alarms, 

Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar ; 
Like some bold vet'ran, gray in arms. 

And mark'd with many a seamy scar : 
The pond'rous wall and massy bar. 

Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock, 
Have oft withstood assailing war. 

And oft repell'd th* invader's shock. 

With awe-struck thought, and pitying 
tears, 

I view that noble, stately dome, 
Where Scotia's kings of other years, 

Fam'd heroes, had their royal home : 
Alas, how chang'd the times to come !' 

Their royal narne low in the dust ! 
Their hapless race wild-wand'ring roam ! 

Tho' rigid law cries out, 'twas just ! 

Wild beats my heart, to trace your steps. 

Whose ancestors, in days of yore. 
Thro' hostile ranks and ruin'd gaps 

Old Scotia's bloody lion bore : 
Ev'n I who sing in rustic lore. 

Haply my sires have left their shed, 
And fac'd grim danger's loudest roar, 

Bold-following where your fathers led ! 

Edina ! Scotia's darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs. 
Where once beneath a monaixh's feet 

Sat Legislation's sov'reign pow'rs ! 
From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs. 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd. 
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, 

I shelter in thy honour'd shade. 



EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIK, AN OLD SCOTTISH BARD. 

Apru. 1, 1785. 



While briers an' woodbines budding 

green. 
An' pai tricks serai chin loud at e'en. 
An* morning poussie whiddin seen. 

Inspire my Muse, 
This freedom, in an unknown frien' 

I pray excuse. 



On Fasten-een we had a rockin. 

To ca' the crack and weave our stock- 

in; 
And there was muckle fun and jokin. 

Ye need na doubt ; 
At length we had a hearty yokin 

At sang about. 



76 



EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIK, 



There was ae sang, amang the rest, 
Aboon them a' it pleas'd me best. 
That some kind husband had addrest 

To some sweet wife : 
It thirPd the heart-strings thro' the 
breast, 

A' to the life. 

I've scarce heard ought describ'd sae 

weel. 
What gen'rous, manly bosoms feel ; 
Thought I, * Can this be Pope, or Steele, 

Or Beattie's wark ! ' 
They tald me 'twas an odd kind chiel 

About Muirkirk. 

It pat me fidgin-faiu to hear't. 
And sae about him there I spier't ; 
Then a' that ken'd him round declared 

He had ingine. 
That nane excell'd it, few cam near't, 

It was sae fine. 

That, set him to a pint of ale, 

An' either douce or merry tale. 

Or rhymes an' sangs he'd made himsel. 

Or witty catches, 
'Tween Inverness and Tiviotdale, 

,He had few matches. 

Then up I gat, an' swoor an aith, 
Tho' I should pawn my pleugh and 

graith. 
Or die a cadger pownie's death, 

At some dyke-back, 
A pint an* gill I'd gie them baith 

To hear your crack. 

But, first an' foremost, I should tell, 
Amaist as soon as I could spell, 
I to the crambo-jingle fell, 

Tho' rude an' rough. 
Yet crooning to a body's sel, 

Does weel eneugh. 

I am nae Poet, in a sense, 

But just a Rhyroer, like, by chance, 

An' hae to learning nae pretence, 

Yet, what the matter ? 
Whene'er my Muse does on me glance, 

T jingle at her. 



Your critic-folk may cock their nose,. 
And say, * How can you e'er propose. 
You wha ken hardly verse frae prose. 

To mak a sang ? ' 
But, by your leaves, my learned foes, 

Ye're maybe wrang. 

JVhat's a' your jargon o' your schools, 
Your Latin names for horns an' stools ; 
If honest nature made you fools, 

What sairs your grammars ? 
Ye'd better ta'en up" spades and shools, 

Or knappin-hammers. 

A set o' dull, conceited hashes. 
Confuse their brains in college classes ! 
They gang in stirks, and come out asses, 

Plain truth to speak ; 
An' syne they think to climb Parnassus 

By dint o' Greek! ' 

Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire. 
That's a' the learning 1 desire ; 
Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire 

At pleugh pr cart. 
My Muse, though hamely in attire. 

May touch the heart. 

for a spunk o' Allan's glee. 

Or Ferguson's, the bauld an' slee, 
Or bright Lapraik's, my friend to be, 

If I can hit it ! 
That would be lear eneugh for me. 

If I could get it. 

Now, Sir, if ye hae friends enow, 
Tho' real friends, I b'lieve, are few. 
Yet, if your catalogue be fou, 

I'se no insist. 
But git ye want ae friend that's true, 

I'm on your list 

1 winna blaw about mysel. 
As ill I like my fauts to tell ; 

But friends, an' .folks that wish me well, 
They sometimes roose me ; 

Tho' I maun own, as monie still 
As fa,r abuse me. 

There's ae wee faut they whiles lay to me, 
I like the lasses — Gude forgie me ! 
For monie a plack they wheedle frae me. 



EPISTLE TO yOHN LAPRAIK. 



11 



At dance or fair ; 
Maybe some ither thing they gie me 
They weel can spare. 

But MauchUne race, or Mauchline fair, 
I should be proud to meet you there ; 
We'se gie ae night's discharge to care, 

If we forgather, 
An' hae a swap o' rhymm-ware 

Wi' ane anither. 

The four-gill chap, we'se gar him clatter, 
An' kirsen him wi' reekin water ; 
Syne we'll sit down an' tak our whitter. 

To cheer our heart ; 
An' faith, we'se be acquainted better 

Before we part. 

Awa, ye selfish, warly race, 

Wha think that havins, sense, an' grace, 



Ev'n love an' friendship, should give 
place 

To catch-the-plack ! 
I dinna like to see your face. 

Nor hear your crack. 

But ye whom social pleasure charms, 
Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms, 
Who hold your being on the terms, 

' Each aid the others, ' 
Come to my bowl, come to my arms, 

My friends, my brothers ! 

But to conclude my lang epistle. 

As. my auld pen's worn to the grissle ; 

Twa lines frae you wad gar me fissle. 

Who am, most fervent. 
While I can either sing, or whissle, 

Your friend and servant. 



TO THE SAME. 
April 21, 1785. 



While new-ca'd kye rowte at the stake, 
An' pownies reek in pleugh or braik. 
This hour on e'enin's edge I take. 

To own I'm debtor, 
To honest-hearted, auld Lapraik, 

For his kind letter. 

Forjesket sair, with weary legs, 
Rattlin the corn out-owre the rigs, 
Or dealing thro' amang the naigs 

Their ten-hours' bite 
My awkart Muse sair pleads and begs, 

I would na write. 

The tapetless, ramfeezl'd hizzie, 
She's saft at best, and something lazy, 
Quo' she, * Ye ken, we've been sae busy. 

This month an' mair, 
That trouth my head is grown quite 
dizzie. 

An' something sair.' 

Her dowff excuses pat me mad ; 

' Conscience,' says I, *ye thowless jad ! 

I'll write, an' that a hearty blaud. 

This vera night ; 
So dinna ye affront your trade, 

But rhyme it right. 



* Shall bauld Lapraik, the king o' hearts, 
Tho' mankind were a pack o cartes, 
Roose you sae weel for your deserts, 

In terms sae friendly. 
Yet ye'lt neglect to shaw your parts, 

An' thank him kindly ! ' 

Sae I gat paper in a blink, 

An' down gaed stumpie in the ink : 

Quoth I, * Before I sleep a wink, 

I vow I'U close it ; 
An' if ye winna mak it clink. 

By Jove I'll prose it ! ' 

Sae I've begun to scrawl, but whether' 
In rhyme, or prose, or baith thegither, 
Or some hotch-potch that's rightly 
neither. 

Let time mak proof ; 
But I shall scribble down some blether 

Just clean aff-loof. 

My worthy friend, ne'er grudge an' carp, 
Tho' fortune use you hard an' sharp ; 
Come, kittle up your moorland harp 

Wi' gleesome touch ! 
Ne'er mind how fortune waft an' warp ; 

She's but a bitch. 



7S 



TO WILLIAM SIMPSON. 



She's gien me monie a jirt an' fleg. 
Sin' I could striddle owre a, rig ; 
But, by the Lord, tho' I should beg 

\Vi' lyart pow, 
I'll laugh, an' sing, an' shake rny leg, 

As lang's I dow ! 

Now comes the sax an' twentieth simmer, 
I've seen the bud upo' the timmer, 
Still persecuted by the limmer 

Frae year to year : 
But yet, despite the kittle kimmer, 

Ij^Rob, am here. 

Do ye envy the city Gent, 

Behind a kist to lie an' sklent, 

Or purse-proud, big wi' cent per cent ; 

An' muckle wame. 
In some bit Brugh to represent 

A Bailie's naine ? 

Or is't the paughty, feudal Thane, 
Wi' ruftl'd sark an' glancing cane, 
Wha thinks himsel nae sheep-shank bant, 

But lordly stalks. 
While caps and bonnets aff are taen, 

As by he walks ? 

' O Thou wha gies us each guid gift ! 

Gie me o' wit an' sense a lift. 

Then turn me, if Thou please, adrift, 

Thro' Scotland wide ; 
Wi' cits nor lairds I wadna shift, 

In a' their pride ! * 



Were this the charter of our state, 
' On pain o' hell be rich an' great,' 
Damnation then would be our fate. 

Beyond remead ; 
But, thanks to Heaven ! that's no the gate 

We learn our creed. 

For thus the royal mandate ran. 
When first the human race began, 
' The social, friendly, honest man, 

What e'er he be, 
'Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan. 

And none but he ! ' 

O mandate glorious and divine ! 
The followers of the ragged Nine, 
Poor, thoughtless devils ! yet may shine, 

In glorious light, 
While sordid sons of Mammon's line 

Are dark as night. 

Tho' here they scrape, an' squeeze, an' 

giowl, 
Their worthless nievefu' of a soul 
May in some future carcase howl. 

The forest's fright ; 
Or in some day-detesting owl 

May shun the light. 

Then may Lapraik and Burns arise, 
To reach their native, kindred skies, 
And sing their pleasures, hopes, an' joys, 

In some mild sphere, 
Still closer knit in friendship's ties 

Each passing year ! 



TO WILLIAM SIMPSON. 



I GAT your letter, winsome Willie ; 
Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawlie; 
Tho' I maun say't, I wad be silly, 

An' unco vain. 
Should I believe, my coaxin billie. 

Your flatterin strain. 



OCHILTREE. 

May, 1785. 

My senses wad be in a creel. 
Should I but dare a hope to speel, 
Wi' AUan, or wi' Gilbertfield, 

The braes o' fame ; 
Or Ferguson, the writer-chiel, 

A deathless name. 



But I'se believe ye kindly meant it, 
I sud be laith to think ye hinted 
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented 

On my poor Musie ; 
Tho' in sic phraisin terms ye've penn'd it, 

I scarce excuse ye. 



(O Ferguson ! thy glorious parts 
111 suited law's dry, musty arts ! 
My curse upon your whunstane hearts, 

Ye Enbrugh Gentry ! 
The tythe o' what ye waste at cartes 

Wad stow'd his pantry I) 



TO WILLIAM SIMPSOM. 



1^ 



Yet when a tale comes i' my head. 

Or lasses gie my heart a screed, 

As whiles they're like to be my dead, 

(O sad disease !) 
I kittle up my rustic reed ; 

It gies me ease. 

Auld Coila, now, may fidge fu' fain, 

She's gotten Poets o' her ain, 

Chiels wha their chanters winna hain. 

But tune their lays. 
Till echoes a' resound again 

Her wecl-sung praise. 

Nae Poet thought her worth his while^ 
To set her name in measur'd style ; 
She lay like some unkend-of isle, 

Beside New Holland, 
Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil 

Besouth Maq-ellan. 



Ramsay an' famous Ferguson 
Gied Forth an' Tay a lift aboon ; 
Yarrow an' Tweed, to monie a tune, 

Owre Scotland rings, 
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon, 

Naebody sings. 

Th' Ilissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine, 
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line ! 
But, Willie, set your fit to mine, 

An' cock your crest. 
We'll gar our streams an' burnies shine 

Up wi' the best. 

We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells, 
Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells. 
Her banks an' braes, her dens an' dells, 

Wliere glorious Wallace 
Aft bure the gree, as story tells, 

Frae Southron billies. 

At Wallace' name, what Scottisli blood 
But boils up in a spring-tide flood ! 
Oft have our fearless fathers strode 

By Wallace' side. 
Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod, 

Or glorious dy'd. 



O, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods. 
When lintwhites chant amang the buds. 
And jmkin hares, in amorous whids. 

Their loves enjoy, 
While thro' the braes the cushat 'croods 

Wi' wailfu' cry ! 

Ev'n winter bleak has charm- to me 
When winds rave thro' the naked tree ; 
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree 

Are hoary gray ; 
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, 

Dark'ning the day ! 

O Nature ! a' thy shews an' forms 
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms ! 
Whether the summer kindly warms, 

W^i' life an' light. 
Or winter howls, in gusty storms. 

The lang, dark night I 

The Muse, na Poet ever fand her, 
Till by himsel he learn'd to wander; 
Adown some trottin burn's meander, 

An' no think lang ; 
O sweet, to stray an' pensive ponder 

A heart-felt sang J 

The warly race may drudge an' drive, 
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an' strive. 
Let me fair Nature's face descrive. 

And I, wi' pleasure. 
Shall let the busy, grumbling hive 

Bum owre their treasure. 

Fareweel,*myrhyme-composingbrither!' 
We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither: 
Now let us lay our heads thegither, 

In love fraternal : 
May Envy wallop in a tether. 

Black fiend, infernal ! 

While Highlandmen hate tolls an' taxes ; 
While moorlan' herds like 'guid, fat 

braxies ; 
While Terra Firma, on her axis, 

Diurnal turns. 
Count on a friend, in faith an' practice, 

In Robert Burns. 



So 



TO WILLIAM SIMPSON. 



POSTSCRIPT 

My memory's no worth a preen; 

I "had amaist forgotten clean, 

Ye bade me write you what they mean 

By this New-Light, 
'Bout which our herds sae aft have been 

Maist like to fight. 

In days when mankind were but callans 
At grammar, logic, an' sic talents, 
They took nae pains their speech to 
balance, 

Or rules to gie, 
But spak their thoughts in plain, braid 
Lallans, 

Like you or me. 

In thae auld times, they thought the 

moon, 
Just like a sark, or pair o' shoon, 
Wore by degrees^ till her last roon, 

Gaed past their viewin, 
An' shortly after she was done. 

They gat a new one. 

This past for certain, undisputed ; 
It ne'er cam i' their heads to doubt it, 
Till chiels gat up an' wad confute it. 

An' ca'd it wrang ; 
An' muckle din there was about it, 

Baith loud an' lang. 

Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk, 
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk ; 
For 'twas the auld moon turn'd a neuk, 

An' out o' sight, 
An' backlins-comin, to the leuk. 

She grew mair bright. 

This was deny'd, it was affirm'd ; 
The herds an' hissels were alarm'd : 
The rev'rend gray-beards rav'd an' 
storm'd, 

That beardless laddies 
Should think they better were inform'd 
Than their auld daddies. 



Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks ; 
Frae words an' aiths to clours an' nicks ; 
An' monie a fallow gat his licks, 

Wi' hearty crunt ; 
An' some, to learn them for their tricks. 

Were hang'd an' brunt. 

This game was play'd in monie lands, 
An' auld-light caddies bure sic hands, 
That, faith,.the youngsters took the sands 

Wi' nimble shanks. 
The lairds forbad, by strict commands, 

Sic bluidy pranks. 

But new-light herds gat sic a cowe, 
Folk thought them ruin'd stick-an-stowe. 
Till now amaist on ev'ry knowe 

Ye'll find ane plac'd ; 
An' some, their new-light fair avow, 

Just quite barefac'd. 

Nae doubt the auld-light flocks are 

bleatin ; 
Their zealous herds are vex'd an' sweatm ; 
Mysel, I've even seen them greetin 

Wi' girnin spite, 
To hear the moon sae sadly lie'd on 

By word an' write. 

But shortly they will cowe the louns ! 
Some auld-light herds in neebor towns 
Are mind't, in things they ca' balloons, 

To tak a flight, 
An' stay ae month amang the moons, 

An' see them right. 

Guid observation they will gie them ; 
An' when the auld moon's gaun to lea'e 

them, 
The hindmost shaird, they'll fetch it wi' 
them, 

Just i' their poucli. 
An' when the new'-light billies see them, 
I think they'll crouch ! 

Sae, ye observe that a' this clatter 

Is naething but a ' moonshine matter ; ' 

But tho' dull-prose folk Latin splatter 

In logic tulzie, 
I hope, we Bardies ken some better 

Than mind sic bnilzie. 



EPISTLE TO JOHM RANKINE. 



EPISTLE TO JOHN RANKINE, 



ENCLOSU«G SOME POEMS. 



ROUGH, rude, veady-witted Rankine, 
The wale o' cocks for fun an' drinkin ! 
There's monie godly folks are thinkin, 

Your dreams an' tricks 
Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin, 
Straught to auld Nick's. 

Ve hae sae monie' cracks an' cants, 
And in your wicked, druken rants. 
Ye mak a devil o' the saunts. 

An' fill them fou ; 
And then their failings, flaws, an' wants, 

Are a*^ seen thro'. 

Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it ! 
That holy robe^ O dinna tear it ! 
Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it, 

The lads in black ; 
But your curst wit, when it comes near it, 

Rives't aff their back. 

ThinkjWicked sinner, wha ye' re skaithing, 
It's just the blue-gown badge an' clai thing 
O' saunts J takthat,ye lea'e them nai thing 

To ken them by, 
Frae ony .unregenerate heathen 

Like you or I. 

I've sent you here some rhyming ware, 
A' that I bargain'd for, an mair ; 
Sae, when ye hae an hour to ispare, 

I will expect. 
Yon sang, ye'U sen't, wi' cannie care. 

And no neglect 

Tho', faith, sma' heart hae I to sing ! 
My Muse dow scarcely spread her wing ! 
I've play'd mysel a bonie spring, 

An' danc'd my fill ! 
I'd better gaen an' sair't the king 

At Bunker's Hill. 

'Twas ae night lately, in my fun, 

1 gaed a roving wi' the gun, 

An' brought a paitrick to the gnin, 



A bonie hen. 
And, as the twilight was begun. 

Thought nane wad ken. 

The poor, wee thing was little hurt ; 

I straikit it a wee for sport, 

Ne'er thinkm they wad fash me for't ; 

But, Deil-ma-care ! 
Somebody tells the poacher-court 

The hale affair. 

Some auld, us'd hands had ta'en a note, 
That sic a hen had got a shot ; 
I was suspected for the plot ; 

I scorn'd to lie ; 
So gat the whissle o' my groat, 

An' pay't the fee. 

But, by my gun, o' guns the wale. 
An' by my pouther an' my hail. 
An' by my hen, an' by her tail, 

I vow an' swear ! 
The game shall pay, o'er moor an' dale. 

For this, niest year. 

As soon's the clockin-time is by. 
An' the wee pouts begun to cry, 
Lord, I'se hae sportin by an' by. 

For my gowd guinea ; 
Tho' I should herd the buckskin kye 

For't, in Virginia. 

Trowth, they had muckle for to blame ! 
'Twas neither broken wing nor limb, 
But twa-three draps about the wame 

Scarce thro' the feathers ; 
An' baith a yellow George to claim. 

An' thole their blethers J 

It pits me aye as mad^s a hare ; 
So I can rhyme nor write nae niair ; 
But pennyworths again is fair, 

When time's expedient]; 
Meanwhile I am, respected Sir, 

Your most obedient. 



VVRITTEM IN FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE. 



WRITTEN IN FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE, 

ON NITH-SIDE. 



Thou whom chance may hither lead. 
Be thou clad in russet weed, 
Be thou deckt in silken stoIe> 
Grave these counsels on thy soul. 

Life is but a day at most. 
Sprung from night, in darkness lost ; 
Hope not sunshine ev'ry hour, 
Fear not clouds will always lour. 

As Youth and Love, with sprightly 
dance, 
Beneath thy morning star advance, 
Pleasure with her syren air 
May delude the thoughtless pair ; 
Let Prudence bless Enjoyment's cup, 
Then raptur'd sip, and sip it up. 

As thy day grows warm and high, 
Life's meridian flaming nigh. 
Dost thou spurn the humble vale ? 
Life's proud summits wouldst thou scale? 
Check thy climbing step, elate, 
Evils lurk in felon wait : 
Dangers, eagle-pinioned, bold. 
Soar around each cliffy hold. 
While cheerful Peace, with linnet song. 
Chants the lowly dells among. 

As the shades of ev'ning close, 
Beck'ning thee to long repose ; 
As life itself becomes disease, 
Seek the chimney -nook of ease. 
There ruminate with sober thought. 
On all thou'st seen, and heard, and 

wrought ; 
And teach the sportive younkers round, 
Saws of experience, sage and sound. 
Say, man's true, genuine estimate. 
The grand criterion of his fate. 
Is not — art thou high or low ? 
Did thy fortune ebb or flow ? 
Did many talents gild thy span ? 
Or frugal Nature grudge thee one ? 
Tell them, and press it on their mind, 
As thou thyself must shortly find. 
The smile or frown of awful Heav'n 
To Virtue or to Vice is giv'n. 
Say, to be just, and kind, and wise. 
There solid self-enjoyment lies ; 
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways. 



Lead to be wretched, vile, apd base. 

Thus resign'd and quiet, creep 
To the bed of lasting sleep ; 
Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake, 
Night, where dawn shall never break, 
Till future life, future no more, 
To light and joy the good restore, 
To light and joy unknown before. 

Stranger, go ! Heaven be thy guide 
Quod the Beadsman of Nith-side. 



Glenriddel Hermitage, June 28/^, 1788. 
FROM the MS. 

Thou whom chance may hither lead, 
Be thou clad in russet weed, 
Be thou deckt in silken stole. 
Grave these maxims on thy soul. 

Life is but a day at most, 
Sprung from night, in darkness lost ; 
Hope not sunshine every hour, 
Fear not clouds will always lour. 
Happiness is but a name, 
Make content and ease thy aim. 
Ambition is a meteor gleam, 
Fame, an idle restless dream : 
Peace, the tenderest flower of spring j 
Pleasures, insects on the wing ; 
Those that sip the dew alone, 
Make the butterflies thy own ; 
Those that would the bloom devour. 
Crush the locusts, save the flower. 
For the future be prepar'd. 
Guard, wherever thou canst guard ; 
But thy utmost duly done, 
Welcome what thou canst not shun. 
Follies past give thou to air. 
Make their consequence thy care : 
Keep the name of Man in mind, 
And dishonour not thy kind. 
Reverence, with lowly heart. 
Him whose wondrous work thou art : 
Keep His goodness still in view, 
Thy Trust, and Thy Example too. 
Stranger, go ! Heaven be thy guide ! 
Quod the Beadsman of Nithe-side. 



ELEGY, 



S3 



ODE, SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. OSWALD. 



Dweller in yon dungeon dark, 
Hangman of creation, mark ! 
Who in widow-weeds appears, 
Laden with unhonour'd years, 
Noosing with care a buisting purse, 
Baited with many a deadly curse ! 

STROPHE. 

View the wither'd beldam s face — 

Can thy keen inspection trace 

Aught of humanity's sweet melting 

grace? 
Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows, 
Pity's flood there never rose. 
See those hands, ne'er stretch'd to save. 
Hands that took — ^but never gave. 
Keeper of Mammon's iron chest, 
Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest 
She goes, but not to realms of ever- 
lasting rest ! 



ANTISTROPHE. 

Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes, 
(A while forbear, ye tort' ring fiends,) 
Seest thou whose step unwilling hither 

bends ? 
No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skies ; 
'Tis thy trusty quondam mate, 
Doom'd to share thy fiery fate. 
She, tardy, hell-ward plies. 

EPODE. 

And are they of no more avail, 

Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a year ? 

In other worlds can Mammon fail. 

Omnipotent as he is here ? 

O, bitter mock'ry of the pompous bier, 

While down the wretched vital part is 

driVn ! 
The cave-lddg'd beggar, with 

conscience clear, 
Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to 

Heav'n. 



ELEGY ON CAPT. MATTHEW HENDERSON, 

# 

A GENTLEMAN WHO HELD THE PATENT FOR HIS HONOURS' IMMEDIATELY FROM ALMIGHTY GOD. 

But now his radiant course is run. 

For Matthew's course was bright ; 
His soul was like the glorious su7i, 

A matchless, Heazfnly Light. 



O Death ! thou tyrant fell and bloody L 
The meikle devil wi' a woodie 
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie. 

O'er hurcheon hides. 
And like stock-fish come o'er his studdie 

Wi' thy auld sides I 

He's gane, he's gane ! he's frae us torn, 
The ae best fellow e'er was born ! 
Thee, Matthew, Nature's ^el' shall 
mourn 

By wood and wild. 
Where, haply. Pity sfriays forlorn, 

Frae man exil'd. 



Ye hills, near neebors o* the stams, 
Tha,t proudly cock your cresting cairns ! 
Ye clUfs, the haunts of sailing jearns, 

Where echo slumbers ! 
Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns, 

My wailing numbers ! 

Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens ! 
Ye haz'lly shaws and briery dens I 
Ye burnies, wimplin down your glens, 

Wi' toddlin din. 
Or foaming r.trang, wi' hasty stens, 

Frae lin to lin. 



^4 



EL&GV. 



Mourn, little harebells o'er the lee ; 
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see ; 
Ye woodbines hanging bonilie, 

In scented bow'rs ; 
Ye roses on your thorny tree, 

The first o' flow'rs. 

At dawn, when ev'ry grassy blade 
Droops with a diamond at his head, 
At ev'n, when beans their fragrance shed, 

I' th' rustling gale. 
Ye maukins whiddin thro' the glade, 

Gome join my wail. 

Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood ; 
Ye grouse that Crap the heather bud ; 
Ye curlews calling thro' a clud; 

Ye whistling plover ; 
And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood; 

He's gane for ever ! 

Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals. 
Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; 
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels 

Circling the lake ; 
Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, 

Rair for his sake. 

Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close o* day, 
'Mang fields o' flow'ring clover gay ; 
And when ye wing your annual way 

Frae our cauld shore, 
Tell thae far warlds, wha lies in clay. 

Wham we deplore. 

Ye houlets, frae your ivy bow'r, 
In some auld tree, or eldritch tow'r. 
What time the moon, wi' silent glowr, 

Sets up her horn, 
Wail thro' the dreary midnight hour 

Till waukrife mom ! 

O rivers, forests, ^ills, and plains ! 
Oft have ye heard my canty strains : 
But now, what else for me remains 

But tales of woe ; 
And frae my een the drapping rains 

Maun ever flow. 

Mourn, spring, thou darling of the year ! 
Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear : 
Thou, simmer, while each corny spear 



Shoots up its head, 
Thy gay, green, flow'ry tresses shear, 
For him that's dead I 

Thou, autumn, wi' thy yellow hair, 
In grief thy sallow mantle tear ! 
Thou, winter, hurling thro' the air 

The roaring blast, 
Wide o'er the naked world declare 

The worth we've lost ! 

Mourn him, thou sun, great source of 

light ! 
Mourn, empress of the silent night ! 
And you, ye twinkling starnies bright. 

My Matthew mourn ! 
For through your orbs he's ta'en his 
flight, 

Ne'er to return. 

O Henderson ! the man ! the brother ! 
And art thou gone, and gone for ever ? 
And hast thou crost that unknown river,. 

Life's dreary bound ? 
Like thee, where shall I find another, 

The world around ? 

Go to your sculptur'd tombs, ye Great, 
In a' the tinsel trash o' state ! 
But by thy honest turf I'll wait, 

Thou man of worth ! 
And w6ep thee ae best fellow's fate 

E'er lay in earth. 



THE EPITAPH. 

Stop, passenger ! my story's brief. 
And truth I shall relate, man ; 

I tell nae common tale o' grief, 
For Matthew was a great man. . 

If thou uncommon merit hast. 

Yet spum'd at fortune's door, man ; 

A look of pity hither cast, 
For Matthew was a poor man. 

If thou a noble sodger art. 
That passest by this grave, man. 

There moulders here a gallant heart ; 
For Matthew was a brave man. 



LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 



85 



If thou on men, their works and ways, 
Canst throw uncommon light, man ; 

Here hes wha weel had won thy praise, 
For Matthew was a bright man. 

If thou at friendship's sacred ca' 
Wad life itself resign, man ; 

The sympathetic tear maun fa', 
For Matthew was a kind man. 

If thou art staunch without a stain. 
Like the unchanging blue, man ; 



This was a kinsman o' thy ain, 
For Matthew was a true man. 

If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire, 
And ne'er gude wine did fear, man ; 

This was thy billie, dam, and sire, 
For Matthew was a queer man. 

If ony whiggish whingin sot, 

To blame poor Matthew dare, man ; 
May dool and sorrow be his lot, 

For Matthew was a rare man. 



LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE 
APPROACH OF SPRING. 



Now Nature hangs her mantle green 

On every blooming tree. 
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white 

Out-owre the grassy lea : 
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams. 

And glads the azure ekies ; 
But nought can glad the weary wight 

That fast in durance lies. 

Now laverocks wake the merry morn. 

Aloft on dewy wing ; 
The merle, in his itoontide bow'r, 

Makes woodland echo,es ring ; 
The mavis mild wi' many a note, 

Sings drowsy day to rest : 
In love and freedom they rejoice, 

Wi' care nor thrall opprest. 

Now blooms the lily by the bank. 

The primrose down the brae : 
The hawthorn 's budding in the glen, 

And milk-white is the slae : 
The meanest hind in fair Scotland 

May rove their sweets aniang ; 
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland, 

Maun lie in prison Strang. 

I was the Queen o' bonie France, 

Where happy I hae been, 
Fu' lightly rase I in the mom, 

As blythc lay down at e'en : 



And I'm the sov'reign of Scotland, 

And mony a traitor there ; 
Yet here I lie in foreign barids, 

And never-ending care. 

But as for thee, thou false woman, 

My sister and my fae, 
Grim vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword 

That thro'-* thy soul shall gae : 
The weeping blood in woman's breast 

Was never known to thee ; 
Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe 

Frae woman's pitying ee. 

My son ! my son ! may kinder stars 

Upon thy fortune shine ; ^ 

And may those pleasures gild thy reign. 

That ne'er wad blink on mine ! 
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, 

Or turn their hearts to thee : 
And where thou meet'st thy mother's 
friend. 

Remember him for me ! 

Oh ! soon, to me, may summer-suns 

Nae mair light up the morn ! 
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds 

Wave o'er the yellow corn ! 
And in the narrow house o' death 

Let winter round me rave ; 
And the next flow'rs that deck the spruig, 

Bloom on my peacefiil grave ! 



86 TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ. 



EPISTLE TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ. 

When Nature her great master-piece design'd, 
And fram'd her last, best work, the human mmd. 
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,. 
She form'd of various parts the various man. 
Then first she calls the useful many forth ; 
Plain plodding industry, and sober worth : 
Thence peasants, flirmers, native sons of earth, 
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth : 
Each prudent cit a warm existence fmds. 
And all mechanics' many-apron'd kinds. 
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet, 
The lead and buoy are needful to the net : 
The caput mortuum of gross desires 
Makes a material for mere knights and squires ; 
The martial phosphoi^us is taught to flow. 
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough, 
Then marks the unyielding mass with grave designs, 
La\v, physic, politics, and deep divines : 
Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles. 
The flashing elements of female souls. 

The ordcrM system fair before her stood, 
Nature, well-pleas'd, pronounc'd it very good ; 
But ere she gave creating labour o'er. 
Half-jest, she try'd one curious labour more ; 
Some spumy, fier)', ignis fatuus matter, 
Such as the sligiitest breath of air might scatter ; 
With arch alacrity and conscious glee 
(Nature may h:rve her whim as well as we. 
Her Hogaiih-ait perhaps she meaait to show it) 
She forms the thing, and christens it — a Poet. 
Creature, tho' ot't the prey of caix; and sorrow, 
When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow. 
A being fonn'd t' amuse his graver friends, 
Ailmir'd and prais'd— and there the homage ends : 
A mortal quite unfit for Fortune's strife. 
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life : 
Prone to enjoy each jjleasure riches give, 
Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live : 
l/^nging to wipe each tear, to heal each groaii, 
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own. 

But honest Nature is not quite a Turk, 
Sl\e laugh'd at fii-st, then felt for her poor work. 
Pitying the propless climber of mankind, 
She cast about a standard tree to find ; 
And, to support his helpless woodbine state, 
Altach'd him to the generous truly great. 



TO R, GRAHAM, ESQ. 87 

A title, and the only one I claim. 

To lay strong hold for hielp on bounteous Graham. 

Pity the tuneful muses' hapless train, 
Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main ! 
Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff. 
That never gives — tho' humbly takes enough ; 
The little fate allows, they share as soon. 
Unlike sage, proverb' d, wisdom's hard wrung boon. 
The world were blest«did bliss on them depend^ 
Ah, that " the friendly e'er should want a friend !" 
Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son. 
Who life and yirisdom at one race begun, 
Who feel by reason,, and who give by rule, 
(Instinct 's a brute, and sentiment a fool !) 
Who make poor * will do ' wait upon * I should ' — 
We pwn they're prudent, but who feejs they're good ? 
Ye wise ones, hence ! ye hurt the social eye ! 
God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy ! 
But come ye, who the godlike pleasure know, 
Heaven's attribute distinguish' d — to bestow ! 
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race : 
Come thou who giv'st with all a courtieris grace ; 
Friend of my life, true^patron of my rhymes ! 
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times. 
Why shrinks my soul, half -blushing, half-afraid, 
Backward, abash'd to ask thy friendly aid ? 
I know my need, I know thy giving hand, 
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command ; 

But there are such who court the tuneful nine — • 

Heavens ! should the branded character be mine ! 
Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows. 
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose, 
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit 
Soars on the spurning wing of injur'd merit ! 
Seek not the proofs in private life to find ; 
Pity the best of words should be bujt Wind ! 
So, to heaven'S'gates the lark's' shrill song ascends. 
But grovelling on tlie-earth the carol ends. 
In all the clam'rous cry of starving want. 
They dun benevolence with shameless front ; 
Oblige them, patronize their tinsel lays, 
They persecute you all your future days ! 
Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain, 
My horny fist assume the plough again ; 
The piebald jacket let me patch once more ; 
On eighteen-pence a week I've liv'd before. 
Tho', thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift, 
I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift ; 
That, plac'd by thee upon the wish'd-for height, 
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight, 
My muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight. 



88 TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. 



TO ROBERT GRAHAM, OF FINTRA, ESQ. 

Late crippl'd of an arm, and now a leg, 
About to beg a pass for leave to beg ; 
Dull, listless, teas'd, dejected, and deprest 
(Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest) : 
Will generous Graham list to his Poet's wail ? 
(If soothes poor Misery, heark'ning to her tale,) 
And hear him curse the light he first survey'd. 
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade ? 

Thou, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign ; 
Of thy caprice maternal I complain. 
The lion and the bull thy care have found, 
One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground : 
Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell, 
Th' envenom'd wasp, victorious, guards his cell. — 
Thy minions, kings defend, control, devour, 
In all th' omnipotence of rule and power. — 
Foxes and statesmen, subtile wiles ensure ; 
The cit ^nd polecat stink, and are secure. 
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug. 
The priest and hedgehog in their robes, are snug. 
Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts. 
Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts. 

But Oh ! thou bitter step-mother and hard. 
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child — the Bard ! 
A thing unteachable in world's skill. 
And half an idiot too, more helpless still. 
No heels to bear him from the op'ning dun ; 
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun ; 
No honis, but those by luckless Hymen worn, 
And those, alas ! not Amalthe'a's horn : 
No neryes olfact'ry, Mammon's trusty cur, 
Clad in rich Dulness' comfortable fur, 
In naked feeling, and in aching pride, 
He bears th' unbroken blast from ev'ry side : 
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart. 
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart. 

Critics — appall'd I venture on the name, 
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame : 
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes ; 
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose. 

His heart by causeless, wanton malice wrung, 
By blockheads' daring into madness stung ; 
His well-won bays, than life itself more dear, 
By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear : 
Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd in th' unequal strife, 
The hapless Poet flounders on thro' life. 
Till fled each hope that once his bosom fir'd, 
And fled each Muse that glorious once inspir'd, 



A LAMENT. 89 



Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age, 

Dead, even resentment, for his ihjur'd page, 

He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage ! 

So, by some hedge, the generous steed deceas'd. 
For half-starv'd snarling curs a dainty feast ; 
By toil and famine wore to skin and bone, 
Lres, senseless of each tugging bitch's son. 

Dulness ! portion of the truly blest ! 
Calm chelter'd haven of eternal rest ! 

Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extremes 
Of Fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams. 
If mantling high she fills the golden cup. 
With sober selfish ease they sip it up ; 
Conscious the bounteous nieed they well deserve, 
They only wonder " some folks " do not starve. 
The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog, 
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog. 
When disappointment snaps the clue of hope. 
And thro' disastrous night they darkling grope, 
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear, 
And just conclude that " fools are fortune*s care." 
So heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks, 
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox. 

Not so the idle Muses' mad-cap train, 
Not such the v/orkings of their moon-struck brain ; 
In equanimity they never dwell. 
By turns in soaring heav'n, or vaulted hell. 

1 dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe. 
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear ! 
Already one strong-hold of hope is lost, 
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust ; 
(Fled, like the sun eclips'd as noon appears, 
And left us darkling in a world of tears :) 
Oh ! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pra/r ! 
Fintra, my other stay, long bless and spaxe ! 
Thro' a long life his hopes- and wishes crown, 
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down ! 
May bliss domestic smooth his private path ; 
Give energy to life ; and soothe his latest breath, 
With many a filial tear circling the bed of death ! 

LAMENT FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 



Thk wind blew hollow frae the hills. 

By fits the sun's departing beam 
Loolc'd on the fading yellow woods 

That wav'd o'er Lugar's winding 
.stream : 
Beneath a craigy steep, a Bard, 

Laden with years and meikle pain, 
[n loud lament bewail'd his lord, 

Whom death had all untimely taeu. 



He lean'd him to an ancient aik. 

Whose trunk was mould'ring down 
with years ; 
His locks were bleached white wi' time, 

His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears ; 
And as he touch'd his trembling harp. 

And as he tun'd his doleful sang, 
The winds, lamenting thro' their caves, 

To echo bore the notes alang. 



90 



A LAMENT. 



** Ye scatter'd birds that faintly sing, 

The reliques of the vernal quire ! 
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds 

The honours of the aged year ! 
A few short months, and glad and gay, 

Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e ; 
But nocht in all revolving time 

Can gladness bring again to me. 

** I am a bending aged tree, 

That long has stood the wind and rain; 
But now has come a cruel blast, 

And my last hold of earth is gane : 
Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring, 

Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom ; 
But I maun lie before the storm, 

And ithers plant them in my room. • 

** I've seen so many changefu' years. 

On earth I am a stranger grown ; 
I wander in the ways of men. 

Alike unknowing and uiiknown : 
Unheard, unpitied, unrelieVd, 

I bear alane my lade o' care, 
For silent, low, on beds of dust, 

Lie a' that would njy sorrows share. 

"And laist (the sum of a' my griefs !) 

My noble master lies in clay ; 
The flow'r amang our barons bold, 

His country's pride, his covmtry's stay : 
In weary being now I pine. 

For a' the life of life is dead, 
And hope has left my aged ken. 

On forward wing for ever fled. 



" Awake thy last sad voice, my harp ! 

The voice of woe and wild despair ! 
Awake, resound thy latest lay. 

Then sleep in silence evermair ! 
And thou, my last, best, only friend. 

That fillest an untimely tomb, 
Accept this tribute from the Bard 

Thou brought frota fortune's mirkest 
gloom. 

•' In Poverty's low barren vale, [round ; 

Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me 
Though oft I tum'd the wistful eye. 

No ray of fame was to be found : 
Thou found'st me, like the morning sun 

That melts the fogs in limpid air, 
The friendless Bard, and rustic song, 

Became alike thy fostering care. 

" O ! why has worth so short a date ? 

While villains ripen grey with time ! 
Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great. 

Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime? 
Why did I live to see that day ? 

A day to me so full of woe ? 
O ! had I met the mortal shaft 

Which laid my benefactor low ! 

" The bridegroom may forget the bride 

Was made his wedded wife yestreen ; 
The monarch may forget the crown 

That on his head an hour has been ; 
The mother may forget the child 

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ; 
But I'll remember thee, Glencaim, 

And a' that thou hast done for me ! " 



LINES SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEPORD, 
OF WHITEFORD, BART. WITH THE FOREGOING POEM. 

Thou, who thy honour as thy God rever'st, 

Who, save thy mind's reproach, nought earthly fear'st, 

To thee this votive offering I impart. 

The teai-ful tribute of a broken heatt 

The friend thou valued'st, I, the Patron, lov'd ; 

His worth, his honour, all the world approv'd. 

We'll mourn till we too ^o as he has gone. 

And tread the dreary patn to that dark world unknown. 



TAM O' SHANTER. 9 1 



TAM O' SHANTER. 

A TALE. 

0/ Brownyis and of Bogilis full in this Btike. 

Gawin Douglas 

When chapman billies leave the street, 
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet, 
As market-days are wearing late. 
An' folk begin to tak the gate ; 
While we sit bousing at the nappy, 
An' getting fou and unco happy. 
We think na on the lang Scots miles, 
The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles, 
That lie between us, and our hame, 
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame, 
Gathering her brows like gathering storm. 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 

This truth fand honest Tarn o' Shanter, 
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, 
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses. 
For honest men and bonie lasses.) 

O Tam ! hadst thou but been sae wise, 
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice ! 
She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum, 
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum ; 
That frae November till October, 
Ae market-day thou was na sober ; 
That ilka melder, wi' the miller. 
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; 
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on. 
The smith and thee gatr roaring fou on ; 
That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday, 
Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday. 
She prophesy'd that, late or soon, 
Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon ; 
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, 
By AUoway's auld haunted kirk. 

Ah, gentle dames ! it gars me greet. 
To think how monie counsels sweet, 
How mony lengthen' d, sage a(i vices, 
The husband frae the wife despises ! 

But to our tale : Ae market night, 
Tam had got planted unco right ; 
P'ast by an ingle, bleezing finely, 
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely ; 
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, 
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony j 



92 TAM O' SHANTER. 



Tarn lo'ed him like a vera blither ; 
They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter 
And ay the ale was growing better : 
The landlady and Tarn grew gracious, 
"Wi' favours, secret, sweet, and precious ; 
The souter tauld his queerest stories. ^ 
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus : 
The storm without inight rair and rustle. 
Tarn did na mind the storm a whistle. 

Care, mad- to see a man sae happy, 
E'en drown'd himsel amang the nappy : 
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, 
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure ; 
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious ! 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the ftow'r, its bloom is shed 
Or like the snow-falls in the river, 
A moment white — then melts for ever ; 
Or like the borealis race, 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
Evanishing amid the storm. — 
Nae man can tether time or tide ; — 
The hour approaches Tam maun ride ; 
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, 
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in j 
And sic a night he taks ihe road in, 
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last ; 
The rattling show'rs rose oh the blast ; 
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd ; 
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd : 
That night, a child might understand. 
The Deil had business on his hand. 

Weel mounted on his^grey mare, Meg, 
A better never lifted leg, 
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, 
Despising wind, and rain, and fire ; 
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet ; 
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet ; 
Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, 
Lest bogles catch him unawares ; 
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, 
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. — 

By this time he was cross tlie ford, 
Whare in the snaw, the chapman smoor'd ; 
And past the birks and meikle stane, 
Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck -bane ; 
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, 
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn ; 



TAM 0' SHANTER. 93 



And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel. — 
Before him Doon pours all his floods ; 
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods ; 
The lightnings flash from pole' to pole ; 
Near and more near the thunders roll : 
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees, 
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze ; 
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing ; 
And loud resounded mirth and dancing. — 

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn ! 
What dangers thou canst make us scorn ! 
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil ; 
Wi' usquebae, we'll face the devil \ — 
The swats sae ream'd in Tarfimie's noddle, 
Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle. 
But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd, 
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd, 
She ventur'd forward on the light ; 
And, vow ! Tarn saw an unco sight ! 
Warlocks and witches in a dance ; 
Nae cotillion brent new frae France, 
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels. 
Put life and mettle in their heels. 
A winnock -bunker in the east, 
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast ; 
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and lai^e. 
To gie them music was his charge : 
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl. 
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. — 
Coffins stood "round like open presses. 
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses ; 
And by some devilish cantraip slight 
Each in its cauld hand held a light, — 
By which heroic Tam was able 
To note upon the haly table, 
A murderer's banes in gibbet aims ; 
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns ; 
A thief, new-cutted frae the rape, 
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; 
Five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted ; 
Five scymitars, wi' murder crusted ; 
A garter, which a babe had strangled ; 
A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 
Whom his ain son o' life bereft. 
The grey hairs yet stack to the heft ; 
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu'. 
Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'. 

As'Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd, and curious, 
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious : 
The piper loud and louder blew ; 
The dancers quick and quicker flew ; 



94 TAM 0' SHANTER. 



They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleelcit, 
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, 
And coost her duddies to the wark, 
And linket at it in her sark ! 

Now Tarn, O Tarn ! had thae been queans, 
A* plump and strapping in their teens ; 
Their sarKs, instead o' creeshie flannen. 
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linnen ! 
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, 
That ance were plush, o' gude blue hair, 
I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies, 
For ae blink o' the bonie burdies ! 

But wither'd beldams, auld and droll, 
Rigwooddie hags wad spean a foal, 
Lowping and flinging on a crummock, 
I wonder didna turn thy stomach. 

But Tarn kend what was what fu' brawl ie. 
There was ae winsome wench and walie, 
That night enlisted in the core, 
(Lang after kend on Carrick shore ; 
For mony a beast to dead she shot. 
And perish'd mony a bonie boat, 
And shook baith meikle corn and bear 
And kept the country-side in feai',) 
Her cutty sark, o' Paisley ham. 
That while a lassie she had worn, 
In longitude tho' sorely scanty, 
It was her best, and she was vauntie. — 
Ah ! little kend thy reverend grannie, 
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, 
Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches). 
Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches ! 

But here my muse her wing maun cour ; 
Sic flights are far beyond her pow'r ; 
To sing how Nannie lap and flang, 
(A souple jade she was, and Strang,) 
And how Tarn stood, like ane bewitch'd, 
And thought his very een enrich'd \ 
Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain, 
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main : 
Till first ae caper, syne anither, 
Tarn tint his reason a' thegither. 
And roars out, *' Weel done, Cutty-sark ! " 
And in an instant all was dark : 
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied. 
When out the hellish legion sallied. 

As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke, 
When plundering herds assail their byke ; 
As open, pussie's mortal foes. 
When, pop ! she starts before their nose ; 
As eager runs the market-crowd, 
When, " Catcli the thief ! " resounds aloud; 



01^ CAPTAtN GROSE'S PEREGRINATIONS. 



95 



So Maggie runs, the witches follow, 

Wi' monie an eldritch skreech and hollow. 

Ah, Tam ! aJi, Tam ! thou'll get ihy fairin ! 
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin ! 
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin ! 
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman \ 
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
And win the key-stane of the brig : 
There at them thou thy tail may toss, 
A running stream they darena cross. 
But ere the key-stane she could make, 
The fient a tail she had to shake I 
For Nannie, far before the rest. 
Hard upon noble Maggie prest^ 
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle ; 
But little wist she Maggie's mettle — 
Ae spring brought off her master hale. 
But left behind her ain gray tail ; 
The carlin claught her by the rump. 
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read. 
Ilk man and mother's son, take heed ; 
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd, 
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind, 
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear, 
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare. 



ON THE LATE CAPTAIN GROSE'S PEREGRINATIONS 
THRO' SCOTLAND, 

COLLECTING THE ANTIQUITIES OP THAT KINGDOM. 



Hear, Land o Cakes, and brither 

Scots, 
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groats; — 
If there's a hole m a' your coats, 

I rede you tent it : 
A chicld's amang you taking notes. 

And, faith, he'll prent it. 



If in your bounds ye chance to light 
Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight, 
0' stature short, but genius bright. 

That's he, mark weel — 
And wow ' he has an unco slight 

O' cauk and keel. 



By sonrje auld, houlet-haunted biggin, 

Or kirk deserted by its riggin, 

It's ten-^to ane ye '11 find him snug in 

Some eldritch part, 
Wi* deils, they say, Lord save *s ! 
coUeaguin 

At some black art. — 

Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chamer, 
Ye gipsy-gang that deal in glamor, 
And you deep read in hell's black 
grammar. 

Warlocks and witches, 
Ye'll quake at his conjuring hammer. 
Ye midnight bitches. 



96 



ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE. 



It's tauld he was a sodger bred, 
And ane wad rather fa'n than fled ; 
But now he's quat the spurtle-blade, 

And dog-skin wallet. 
And tnen the— Antiquarian trade, 

1 think they call it. 

He has a fouth o' auld nick-nackets : 

Rusty airn caps and jimglin jackets. 
Wad iiaud the Lothians three in tackets, 

A towmont gude ; 
AndpaiTitch-pats, and auld saut-backets, 

Before the Flood. 

Of Eve's first fire he lias a cinder ; 
Auld Tubalcain's fire-shool and fender ; 
That which distinguished the gender 

O' Balaam's ass ; 
A broom-stick o' the witch of Endor, 

Weel shod wi' brass. 



Forbye, he'll shape you aff, fu' gleg 
The cut of Adam's philibeg ; 
The ^:nife that nicket Abel's craig 

He'll prove you fully. 
It was a faulding jocteleg, 

Or lang-kail guUie. — 

But wad ye see him in his glee. 
For meikle glee and fun has he, 
Then set him down, and twa or three 

Gude fellows wi' him ; 
And port, O port ! shine thou a wee, 

And then ye'll see him \ 

Now, by the Pow'rs o' verse and prose ! 
Thou art a dainty chield, O Grose !: — 
Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose. 

They sair misca' thee ; 
I'd take the rascal by the nose, 

Wad say. Shame fa' thee I 



ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME, 



WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT AT. 



{April, 1789.1 



Inhuman man ! curse on thy barb'rous art. 
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye ; 
May never pity sootlie thee with a sigh, 

Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart ! 

Go, live, poor wanderer of the wood and field, 

The bitter little that of life remains ; 

No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains 
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. 

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest, 
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed ! 
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head. 

The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest. 

Oft as by winding Nith, T, musing, wait 
The sober eve, or hail the cheerfial dawn, 
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, 

And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate. 



TO MTSS CRUrtCSHANK. 



07 



ADDRESS TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON, 

ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM, ROXBURGH-SHIRE, WITH BAYS. 



While virgin. Spring, by Eden's flood, 
Unfolds her tender mantle green. 

Or pranks the sod in frolic mood, 
Or tunes Eolian strains between ; 

While Summer with a matron grace 
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade, 

Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace 
The progress of the spiky blade ; 

While Autumn, bene Actor kind. 
By Tweed erects his aged head, 



And sees, with self- approving mind, 
Each creature on his bounty fed ; 

While maniac Winter rages o'er 
The hills whence classic Yarrow flows, 

Rousing the turbid ton'ent's roar, 
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows j 

So long, sweet Poet of the year, 
Shall bloom that wreath thou well 
hast won ; 

While Scotia, with exulting tear, 
Proclaims that Thomson was her son. 



TO MISS CRUIKSHANK. 

A VERY YOUNG LADY, 
WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A BOOK, PRESENTED TO HER BY THE AUTHOR. 



Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay, 
Blooming in thy early May, 
Never may'st thou, lovely Flow'r, 
Chilly shrink in sleety show'r ! 
Never Boreas' hoary path, 
Never Eurus' poi.s'nous breath, 
Never baleful stellar lights, 
Taint thee with untimely blights ! 
Never, never reptile thief 
Riot on thy virgin leaf ! 
Nor even Sol too fiercely view 
Thy bosom blushing still with dew ! 



May'st thou long, sweet crimson 
gem, 
Richly deck thy native stem ; 
Till some evening, sober, calm, 
Dropping dews, and breathing balm. 
While all around the woodland rings. 
And every bird thy requiem sings; 
Thou, amid the dirgeful sound. 
Shed thy dying honours round, 
And resign to parent earth 
The loveliest form she e'er gave birth. 



ON READING, IN A NEWSPAPER, 

THE DEATH OF JOHN M'LEOD, ESQ 

BROTHER TO A YOUNG LADY, A PARTICff.AR FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR'S. 



Sad thy tale, thou idle page, 

And rueful thy alarms : 
Death tears the brother of her love 

From Isabella's arms. 

U 



Sweetly deckt with pearly dew 
The morning rose may blow ; 

But cold successive noontide blasts 
May lay its beauties low. 

H 



9S 



PETITION OF BRUAR WATER. 



Fair on Isabella's morn 
The sun propitious smil'd ; 

But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds 
vSucceeding hopes beguil'd. 

Fate oft tears the bosom chords 
That Nature finest strung : 

So Isabella's heart was form'd, 
And so that heart was wrung. 



Dread Omnipotence, alone, 
Can heal the wound He gave ; 

Can point the brimful grief-worn eyes 
To scenes beyond the grave. 

Virtue's blossoms there shall blow. 
And fear no withering blast ; 

There Isabella's spotless worth 
Shall happy be at last. 



THE HUMBLE PETITION OF BRUAR WATER 
TO THE NOBLE DUKE OF ATHOLE. 



My Lord, I know your noble ear 

Woe ne'er assails in vain ; 
Embolden'd thus, I beg you'll hear 

Your humble Slave complain, 
How saucy Phoebus' scorching laeams, 

In flaming summer-pride, 
Dry- withering, waste my foamy streams. 

And drink my crystal tide. 

The lightly-jumping glowrin trouts. 

That thro' my waters play. 
If, in their random, wanton spouts, 

They near the margin stray ; 
If, hapless chance ! they linger lang, 

I'm scorching up so shallow, 
They're left the whitening stanes amang, 

In gasping death to wallow. 

Last day I grat wi' spite and teen, 

As Poet Burns came by, 
That to a Bard I should be seen 

Wi' half my channel dry : 
A panegyric rhyme, I ween, 

Even as I was he shor'd me ; 
But had I in my glory been, 

He, kneeling, wad ador'd me. 

Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks, 

In twisting strength I rin ; 
There, liigh my boiling torrent smokes. 

Wild-roaring o'er a linn : 
Enjoying large each spring and well 

As Nature gave them me, 
I am, altho' I say't mysel, 

Worth gaun a mile to see. 



Would then my noble master please 

To grant my highest wishes. 
He'll shade my bank's wi' tow'ring trees, 

And bonie spreading bushes. 
Delighted doubly then, my Lord, 

You'll wander on my banks, 
And listen monie a grateful bird 

Return you tuneful thanks. 

The sober laverock, warbling wild, 

Shall to the skies aspire ; 
The gowdspink, Music's gayest child. 

Shall sweetly join the choir : 
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, 

The mavis mild and mellow ; 
The robin pensive Autumn cheer, 

In all her locks of yellow : 

This, too, a covert shall ensure. 

To shield them from the storm ; 
And coward maukin sleep secure. 

Low in her grassy form : 
Here shall the shepherd make his seat, 

To weave his crown of flow'rs ; 
Or find a sheltering safe retreat. 

From, prone-descending show'rs. 

And here, by sweet endearing stealth, 

Shall meet the loving pair, 
Despising worlds with all their wealth 

As empty,- idle care : 
The flow'rs shall vie in all their charms 

The hour of heav'n to grace, 
And birks extend their fragrant arms, 

To screen the dear embrace. 



THE KlJi/^ OF SCO TLAND'S ALARM. 



00 



Here haply too, at vernal dawn, 

Some musing bard may stray. 
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn. 

And misty mountain, grey ; 
Or, by the reaper's nightly beam, 

Mild-chequering thro' the trees. 
Rave to my darkly dashing stream, 

Hoarse-swelling on the breeze. 

Let lofty firs, and ashes cool. 
My lowly banks o'erspread, 

And view, deep-bending in the pool, 
Their shadows' wat'ry bed ! 



Let fragrant birks m woodbines drest 

My craggy cliffs adorn ; 
And, for the little songster's nest, 

The close embow'ring thorn. 

So may Old Scotia's darling hope, 

Your little angel band, 
Spring, like theiv fathers, up to prop 

Their honour'd native land ! 
So may thro' Albion's farthest ken, 

To social-flowing glasses 
The grace be — '* Athole's honest men, 

And Athole's bonie lasses ! " 



.THE KIRK'S ALARM. 

A SA TIRE. 
A Ballad Ilvhe.—" Pztshal>out the Brisk Bowl." 

Orthodox, Orthodox, wha believe in John Knox, 
Let me sound an alarm to your conscience : 

There's a heretic blast has been blawn i' the wast, 
"That what is not sense must be nonsense." 

Dr. Mac, Dr. Mac, you should stretch on ai^ack, 

To strike evil-doers wi' terror ; 
To join faith and sense upon onie pretence, 

Is heretic, damnable error} 

Town of Ayr, town of Ayr, it was mad, I declare, 

To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing ; 
Provost John is still deaf to the church's relief. 

And orator Bob is its ruin. 

D'rymple mild, D'rymple niild, tho' your heart's lijce a child, 

And your life like the new driven snaw. 
Yet that winna save ye, auld Satan must have ye, 

For preaching that three's ane and twa. 

Rumble John, Rumble John, mount the steps wi' a groan, 

Cry the book is wi' heresy cramm'd ; 
Then lug out your ladle, deal brimstane like adle, 

And roar ev'ry note of the damn'd. 

Simper James, Simper James, leave the fair Killie dames, 

There's a hoUer chase in your view ; 
I'll lay on your head, that the pack ye'll soon lead, 
L cf^''^ puppies like you there's but few. 



loo THE KIRK OF SCOTLAND'S ALARM, 

Singet Sawney, Singet Sawney, are ye herding the penny. 

Unconscious what evils await ? 
Wi' a jump, yell, and howl, alarm every soul, 

For the foul thief is just at your gate. 

Daddy Auld, Daddy Auld, there's a tod in the fauld, 

A tod, meikle waur than the Clerk ; 
Tho' ye can do little skaith, ye'll be in at the death, 

And gif ye canna bite, ye may bark. 

Davie Bluster, Davie Bluster, if for a saint yc do muster, 

The corps is no nice of recruits : 
Yet to worth let's be just, royal blood, ye might boast, 

If the ass was the king of the brutes. 

Jamy Goose, Jamy Goose, ye hae made but toom roose, 

In hunting the wicked Lieutenant ; 
But the Doctor's your mark, for the L — d's haly ark. 

He has cooper'd and caw'd a wrang pin in't. 

Poet Willie, Poet Willie, gie the Doctor a volley, 
Wi' your ** liberty's chain " and your wit ; 

O'er Pegasus' side ye ne'er laid a stride, 
Ye but smelt, man, the place where he sh-t. 

Andro Gouk, Andro Gouk, ye may slander the book, 
And the book no the waur, let me tell ye ! 

Ye are rich, and look big, but lay by hat .and wig. 
And ye'll hae a calf's head o' sma' value. 

Barr Steenie, Ban* Steenie, what mean ye ? what mean ye ? 

If ye'll meddle nae mair wi' the matter, 
Ye may hae some pretence to havins and sense, 

Wi' people wha ken ye nae better. 

Irvine Side, Irvine Side, wi' your turkeycock pride. 

Of manhood but sma' is your share ; 
Ye've the figure, 'tis true, even your faes will allow, 

And your friends they dare grant you nae mair. 

Muirland Jock, Muirland Jock, when the Lord makes a rock 

To crush comrhon sense for her sins, 
Tf ill manners were wit, there's no mortal so fit 
To confound the poor Doctor at ance. 

Holy Will, Holy Will, there was wit i' your skull. 

When ye pilfer'd the aims o' the poor ; 
The timmer is scant when ye're ta'en for a saint, 

Wha should swing in a rape for an hour. 



ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE. 



lOI 



Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, seize your sp' ritual guns, 

Ammunition you never can need ; 
Your hearts are the stuff wijl be powther enough, 

And your skulls are storehouses o' lead. 

Poet Burns, Poet Burns, wi* your priest-slcelping turns. 

Why desert ye your auld native shire ? 
You muse is a gipsie, e'en tho' she were tipsie, 

She cou'd ca' us nae waur than we are. 



ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE, 

WRITTEN WHEN THE AUTHOR WAS GRIEVOUSLY TORMENTfiD BY THAT DISORDER. 



My curse upon your venom'd stang, 
That shoots my tortur'd gums alang ; 
And thro' my lugs gies monie a twang, 

Wi' gnawing vengeance ; 
Tearing fny nerves wi' bitter pang. 

Like racking engines ! 

When fevers burn, or ague freezes. 
Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes ; 
Our neighbour's sympathy may ease us, 

Wi' pitying moan ; 
But thee — thou hell o' a' diseases, 

Ay mocks our groan ! 

Adovvn my beard the slavers trickle ! 
I throw the wee stools o'er the mickle, 
As round the fire the giglets keckle 

To see me loup ; 
While, raving mad, I wish a heckle 

Were in their doup. 



O' a' the numerous human dools, 
111 har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools, 
Or worthy friends rak'd i' the mools, 

Sad sight to see ! 
The tricks o' knaves, or fash o' fools, 

Thou bear'st the gree. 

Wherever that place be priests ca' hell, 
Whence a' the tones o' mis'ry yell, 
And ranked plagues their numbere tell, 

In dreadfu' raw. 
Thou, Toothache, surely bear'st the bell 

Amang them a' ! 

O thou grim mischief-making chiel. 
That gars the notes of discord squeel, 
Till daft mankind aft dance a reel 

In gore a shoe-thick ; — 
Gie a' the faes o' Scotland's weal 

A towmont's Toothache ! 



WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL 



OVER THE CHIMNEY-PIECE IN THE PARLOUR OF THE INN AT KHNMORE, TAVMOUTH. 

Admiring Nature in her wildest grace, 
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace ; 
O'er many a winding dale and painful steep, 
Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep, 
My savage journey, curious, I pursue, 
Till fam'd Breadalbane opens to my view. — 
The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides, 
The woods, wild scatter'd, clothe their ample sides ; 



102 



BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD. 



Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills. 
The eye with wonder and amazement fills ; 
The Tay meand'ring sweet in infant pride, 
The palace rising on his verdant side ; 
The lawns wood-fringed in Nature's native taste 
The hillocks dropt in Nature's careless haste ; 
The arches striding o'er the new-born stream ; 
The village, glittering in the noontide beam — 
» » « * 

Poetic ardours in niy bosom swell, 

Lone wand' ring by the hermit's mossy cell : 

The sweeping theatre of hanging woods ; 

Th' incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods- 

Here Poesy might wake her heav'n-taught lyre, 

And look through Nature with creative fire ; 

Here, to the wrongs of Fate half reconcil'd, 

Misfortune's lighten'd steps might wander wild ; 

And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds, 

Find balm to soothe her bitter, rankling wounds ; 

Here heart-struck Grief might heay'nward stretch her scant 

And iiijur'd Worth forget and pardon man. 



ON THE BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD, 

BORN IN PECULIAR CIRCUMSTAN'CES OF FAMILY DISTRESS. 



Sweet flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love', 
' And ward o' mony a prayer. 
What heart o' stane wad thou na move, 
Sae helpless, sweet, and fair. 



May He, the friend of woe and want, 
Who heals life's various stounds. 

Protect and guard the mother plant, 
And heal her cruel wounds. 



November hirples o'er the lea, 
Chill, on thy lovely form ; 

And gane, alas ! the shelt'ring tree, 
Should shield thee frae the storm. 



Bat late she flourish'd, rooted fast, 
Fair in the summer morn : 

Now, feebly bends she in the blast, 
Unshelter'd and forlorn. 



May He who gives the rain to pour, 
And wings the blast to blaw, 

Protect thee frae the driving show'r. 
The bitter frost and .snaw. 



Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem, 
Unscath'd by ruffian hand ! 

And from thee many a parent stem 
Arise to deck our land. 



SECOND EPISTLE TO DA VIE. 



103 



WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL. 

STANDING BY THE FALL OF FYERS. NEAR LOCH-NESS. 

Among the heathy hills and ragged woods 

The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods ; 

Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds, 

Where, thro' a shapeless breach, his stream resounds. 

As high in air the bursting torrents flow, 

As deep recoiling surges foam belowj 

Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends. 

And viewless Echo's ear, astonished, rends. 

Dim-seen, thro' rising mists and ceaseless show'rs. 

The hoary cavern, wide-surrounding, low'rs. 

Still, thro' the gap the straggling river toils. 

And still, below, the horrid cauldron boils — 



SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER POET. 



AULD NEEBOR, 

I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor. 
For your auld-farrant^ frienly letter ; 
Tho' I maun say't, I doubt ye flatter, 

Ye speak sae fair, 
For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter 

Some less maun sain 

Hale be your h'eart, hale be your fiddle ; 
Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle, 
To cheer you through the weary M'iddle 

O' war'ly cares, 
-Till bairns' bairns kindly cuddle 

Your auld gray hairs. 

But Davie, lad, I'm red ye' re glaikit ; 
I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit ; 
An' gif it's sae, ye sud be licket 

Until ye fyke ; 
Sic hauns as you sud ne'er be faikit. 

Be hain't wha like. 

For me, I'm on Parnassus' brink, 
Rivin' the words to gar them clink j 
Whyles daez't wi' love, whyles daez't 
wi' drink, 

Wi' jads or masons ; 
An' whyles, but aye owre late, I think 

Braw sober lessons. 



Of a' the thoughtless sons o' man, 
Commend me to the Bardie clan ; 
Except it be some idle plan 

O' rhymin clink, 
The devil-haet, that I sud ban. 

They ever think. 

Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme o 

livin*, 
Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin' ; 
But just the pouchie put the nieve in, 

An' while ought's there, 
Then hiltie skiltie, we gae scrievin', 

An' fash nae mair. 

Leeze me on rhyme ! it's aye a treasure. 
My chief, amaist my only pleasure. 
At hame, a-fiel', at wark, or leisure, 

The Muse, poor hizzie ! 
Tho' rough an'raploch be her measure^ 

She's seldom lazy. 

Haud to the Muse, my dainty Davie ; 
The warl' may play you monie a shavie ; 
But for the Muse, she'll never leave ye, 

Tho' e'er sae puir, 
Na, even tho' limpin' wi' tlie spavie " 

Frae door tae door. 



104 



THE mVENTOR Y. 



THE INVENTORY, 



IN ANSWER TO THE USUAL MANDATE SENT BY A SURVEYOR OF THE TAXES, REQUIRING 
A RETURN OF THE NUMBER OF HORSES, SERVANTS, CARRIAGES, ETC. KEPT. 



Sir, as your mandate did request, 
I send you here a faithfu' list, 
O' gudes an' gear, an' a' my graith. 
To which I'm clear to gi'e my aith. 

Imprimis then, for carriage cattle, 
I have four brutes o' gallant mettle. 
As ever drew afore a pettle ; 
My han' afore 's a gude auld has-been. 
An' wight an' wilfu' a' his days been ; 
My han' ahin's a weel gaun fillie, 
That aft has borne me hame frae Killie, 
An* your auld burrough monie a timcj 
In days when riding was nae crime — 
But ance whan in my wooing pride 
I like a blockhead boost to ride. 
The wilfu' creature sae I pat to, 
(Lord, pardon a' my sins an' that too !) 
I play'd ra/ fillie sic a shavie, 
She's a' bedevil'd wi' the spavie. 
My furr- ahin's a wordy beast, 
As e'er in tug or tow was trac'd,— 
The fourth's, a Highland Donald hastie, 
A damn'd red-wud Kilburnie blastie. 
Foreby a Cowte, o' Cowte's the wale. 
As ever ran afore a tail ; 
If he be spar'd to be a beast, 
He'll draw me fifteen pun at least. — 

Wheel carriages I ha'e but few, 
Three carts, an' twa are feckly new , 
Ae auld wheelbarrow, mair for token, 
Ae leg, an' baith the trams, are broken ; 
I made a poker o' the spin'le, 
An' my auld mother brunt the trin'le. 

For men, I've three mischievous boys, 
Run de'ils for rantin' an' few noise ; 
A gaudsman ane, a thrasher t'other, 
Wee Davock hands the.nowte in fother. 
I rule them as I Ought discreetly. 
An' often labour them completely. 



An' ay on Sundays duly nightly, 
I on the questions tairge them tightly ; 
Till faith, wee Davock's grown sae gleg, 
Tho' scarcely langer than my leg, 
He'll screed you aff Effectual Calling, 
As fast as onie in the dwalling. — 

I've nane in female servan' station^ 
(Lord keep me ay frae a' temptation !) 
I ha'e nae wife, and that my bliss is,- 
An' ye have laid nae tax on misses ; 
An' then if kirk folks dinna clutch me, 
I ken the devils dare na touch me. 
Wi' weans I'm mair than weel contented, 
Heav'n sent me ane mae than I wanted. 
My sonsie smirking dear-bought Bess, 
She stares the daddy in her face. 
Enough of ought ye like but grace. 
But her, my bonie sweet -wee lady, 
I've paid enough for her already, 
An' gin ye tax her or her mither, 
B' the Lord, ye'se get them a' thegither. 

And now, remember, Mr. Aiken, 
Nae kind of license out I'm takin' ; 
Frae this time forth, I do declare, 
I'se ne'er ride horse nor hizzie mair ^ 
Thro' dirt and dub for life I'll paidle. 
Ere I sae dear pay for a saddle ; 
My travel a* on foot I'll shank it, 
I've sturdy bearers, Gude be thankit !— 
The Kirk an' you may tak' you that. 
It puts but little in your pat ; 
Sae dinna put me in your buke. 
Nor for my ten white shillings luke. 

This list Wi' my ain han— I wrote it. 
Day an' date as under notit; 
Then know all ye whom it concerns, 
Subscripsi huic, 

Robert Burks 



February iTnd^ 1786. 



THE WHISTLE. 105 



THE WHISTLE. 

A BALLAD, 

I SING of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth, 
I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North, 
Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king. 
And long with this Whistle all Scotland shall ring. 

Old Loda, still rueing the arm of Fingal, 
The god of the bottle sends down from his hall — 
'This Whistle 's your challenge, in Scotland get o'er, 
And drink them to hell. Sir, or ne'er see me more ! * 

Old poets have s\ing, and old chronicles tell, 
What champions ventur'd, what champions fell ; 
The son of great Loda was conqueror still. 
And blew on the Whistle their requiem shrill. 

Till Robert, the lord of the Cairn and the Scaur, 
Unmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war. 
He drank his poor god-ship as deep as the sea. 
No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he. 

Thus Robert, ^Kctorious, the trophy has gain'd, 
Which now in his house has for ages remain'd ; 
Till three noble chieftains, and aill of his blood, 
The iovial contest again have renew'd. 

Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw j 
Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law; 
And trusty Glenriddel, so skill'd in old coins ; 
And gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines. 

Craigdarroch began, with a tongue Smooth as oil, 
Desiring Glenriddel to yield up the spoil ; 
Or else he would muster the heads of the clan, 
A.nd once more, in claret, try which was the man. 

* By the gods of the ancients 1 ' Glenriddel replies, 

* Before I surrender so glorious a prize, 

I'll conjure the ghost of the great Rorie More, 
And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er.* 

Sir Robert, a soldier, no speech would preterid, 
But he ne'er tum'd his back on his foe — or his friend. 
Said, toss down the Whistle, the prize of the field, 
And knee-deep in claret, he'd die ere he'd yield. 



io6 THE WHISTLE. 



To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair, 

So noted for drowning of sorrow and care ; 

But for wine and for welcome not more known to fame. 

Than the sense, wit, and taste of a sweet lovely dame. 

A bard was selected to witness the fray, 
And tell future ages the feats of the day ; 
A bard who detested all sadness and spleen, 
And" wish'd that Parnassus a vineyard had been. 

The dinner being over, the claret they ply. 

And ev'ry new cork is a new spring of joy ; 

In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set. 

And the bands grew the tighter the more they were wet 

Gay Pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o'er ; 
Bright Phoebus ne'er witness'd so joyous a core. 
And vow'd that to leave them he was quite forlorn, 
Till Cynthia hinted he'd see them next mom. 

Six bottles a-piece had well wore out the night. 
When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight, 
Turn'd o'er in one bumper a bottle of red, 
And swore 'twas the way that their ancestors did. 

Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and sage, 
No longer, the warfare ungodly would wage ; 
A high-ruling elder to wallow in wine ! 
He left the foul business to folks less divine. 

The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end ; 
But who can with Fate and quart. bumpers contend? 
Though Fate said, a hero should perish in light ; 
So up rose bright Phoebus — and down fell the knight 

Next up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink : — 

* Craigdarroch, thou' It soar when creation shall sink ! 
But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme, 
Come — one bottle more — and have at the sublime j 

* Thy line, that have Struggled for freedom with Bruce, 
Shall heroes and patriots ever produce : 

So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay ; 

The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of day ! * 



TO THE RIGHT HON. C. J. FOX. 107 



SKETCH 

INSCRIBED TO THB RIGHT HON. C. J. FOX. 

How Wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite ; 
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white j 
How Genius, th' illustrious father of fiction, 
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction — 
I sing ; If these mortals, the Critics, should bustle, 
I care not, not I — let the Critics go whistle ! 

But now for a Patron, whose name and whose glory 
At once may illustrate and honour my story. 

Thou, first of our orators, first of our wits ; 

Yet whose parts and acquirements seem just lucky hits ; 

With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong, 

No man, with the half of 'em, e'er could go wrong ; 

With passions so potent, and fancies so bright, 

No man with the half of 'em e'er could go right ; 

A sorry, poor, misbegot son of the Muses, 

For using thy name offers fifty excuses. 

Good Lord, what is man ! for as simple he looks, 

Do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks. 

With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil. 

All in all, he's a problem must puzzle the devil. 

On his one ruling Passion Sir Pope hugely labours. 

That, like th' old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours 

Mankind are his show-box — a friend, would you know liim ? 

Pull the string. Ruling Passion, the picture will show him. 

What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system, 

One trifling particular, Truth, should have miss'd him ! 

For, spite of his fine theoretic positions. 

Mankind is a science defies definitions. 

Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe, 

And think Human-nature they truly describe ', 

Have you found this, or t'other? there's more in the wind, 

As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll find. 

But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan 

In the make of the wonderful creature call'd Man, 

No two virtues, whatever relation they claim. 

Nor even two different shades of the same. 

Though like as was ever twin-brother to brother 

Possessing the one shall imply you've the other. 

But truce with abstraction, and truce with a muse. 
Whose rhymes you'll perhaps, Sir, ne'er deign to peruse : 
Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels, 
Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels ! 



io8 



TO DR. BLACKLOCK, 



My much-honour'd Patrofl, believe your poor Poet, 
Your courage much more than your prudence you show it, 
In vain with Squire Billy for laurels you struggle, 
He'll have them by fair trade, if not, he will smuggle ; 
Not cabinets even of kings would conceal 'em. 
He'd up the back-stairs, and by G — he would steal 'em. 
Then feats like Squire Billy's you ne'er can atchieve 'em, 
It is not, outdo him — the taslv is, out-thieve him. 



TO DR. BLACKLOCK. 



ELLISLAND, 2 1ST OCT. 1 789. 



Wow, but your letter made me vauntie ! 
And are ye hale, and weel, and cantie ? 
I kenn'd it still your wee bit jauntie 

Wad bring ye to : 
Lord send you ay as weel's I want ye. 

And then ye'il do. 

The ill-thief blaw the Heron south ! 
And never drink be near his drouth ! 
He tald mysel by word o' mouth, 

He'd tak my letter ; 
1 lippen'd to the chiel in trouth, 

And bade nae better. 



But aiblins honest Master Heron 
Had at the time some dainty fair one, 
To ware his theologic care on. 

And holy study ; 
And tir'd o' sauls to waste his lear on, 

E'en tried the body. 

But what d'ye think, my trusty fier, 
I'm turn'd a ganger — Peace be here ! 
Parnassian queens, I fear, I fear 

Ye'll now disdain me ! 
And then my fifty pounds a year 

Will little gain me. 

Ye glaiket, gleesome, dainty damies, 
Wha by Castalia's wimplin' streamies, 
Lowp, sing, and lave your pretty limbics, 

Ye ken, ye ken, 
That Strang necessity supreme is 

'Mane sons o' men. 



I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, 
They maun hae brose and brats o* 

duddies ; 
Ye ken yoursels my heart right proud is — 

I need na vaunt, 
But I'll sned besoms — thraw saugh 
woodies, 

Eefore they want. 

Lord help me thro' this warld o' care ! 
I'm weary sick o't late and air ! 
Not but I hae a richer share 

Than monie ithers ; 
But why should ae man better fare, 

And a* men brithers ? 

Come, Firm Resolve^ take thou the van. 
Thou stalk o' carl-hemp in man ! 
And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan 

A lady fair ; 
Wha does the utmost that he can, 

W^ill whyles do mair. 

But to conclude my silly rhyme, 
(I'm»scant o' verse, and scant o' time,) 
To make a happy fire-side clime 

To weans and wife. 
That's the true pathos and sublime 

Of human life. 

My compliments to s'lster Bcckic ; 
And eke the same to honest Lucky, 
I wat'she is a daintie chuck ie, 

As e'er tread clay ! 
And gratefully, my guid auld cockie, 

I'm yours for ay. 

Robert Burns. 



0!\r THE LA TE MISS BURNET. fop 



PROLOGUE, 

SPOKEN AT THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES, ON NEW YEAR's DAY EVENING. [iJQO-) 

No song nor dance I bring from yon great city 

That queens it o'er our taste — the more's the pity; 

Tho , by-the-by, abroad why will you roam ? 

Good sense and taste are natives here at home : 

But not for panegyric I appear, 

I come to wish you all a good new-year ! 

Old Father Time deputes me here before ye, 

Not for to preach, but tell his simple story : 

The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me say, 

'** You're one ynar older this important day." 

If wiser too — ^he hinted some suggestion, 

But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the question : 

And with a would-be roguish leer and wink. 

He bade me on you press this one word — "Think V* 

Ye sprightly youths, quite flush with hope and spirit, 
Who think to storm the world by dint of merit, 
To you the dotard has a deal to say, 
In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way ! 
He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle. 
That the first blow is ever half the battle ; 
That tho' some by the skirt may try to snatch him, 
Yet by the forelock is the hold to catch him ; 
That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing, 
You may do miracles by persevering. 

Last, tho' not least in love, ye youthful fair, 
Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care ! 
To you old Bald-pate smooths his wrinkled brow. 
And humbly begs you'll mind the important — P<yw ! 
To crown your happiness he asks your leave, 
And offers bliss to give and to receive. 

For our sincere, tho' haply weak endeavours. 
With grateful pride we own your many favours ; 
And howsoe'er our tongues may ill reveal it, 
Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it. 



ELEGY ON THE LATE MISS BURNET, 

OF MONBODDO. 

Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize 

As Burnet, lovely from her native skies ; 

Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow. 

As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low. 



«!0 



TO A GENTLEMAN. 



Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget ? 

In richest ore the brightest jewel set ! 

In thee, high Heaven above was tnlest shown, 

And by his noblest work the Godhead best is known. 

In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves ; 

Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore, 
Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves, 

Ye cease to chaim — Eliza is no more ! 

Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens ; 

Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor'd ; 
Ye rugged cliffs o'erhanging dreary glens. 

To you I fly, ye with my soul accord. 

Princes, whose cumbrous pride was all their worth, 
Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail ? 

And thou, sweet excellence ! forsake our earth. 
And not a Muse in honest grief bewail ? 

We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, 
And virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres : 

But like the sun eclips'd at morning tide, 
Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears. 

The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee. 
That heart how sunk, .a prey to grief and care ; 

So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree, 
So from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare. 



THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS WRITTEN 

TO A GENTLEMAN WHO HAD SENT HIM A NEWSPAPER, ANO OFFERED TO 
CONTINUE IT FREE OF EXPENSE. 



Kind Sir, I've read your paper through, 
And, faith, to me,, 'twas really new ! 
How guess'd ye. Sir, what maist I 

wanted ? 
This monie a day I've grain'd and 

gaunted. 
To ken what 

brewin' ; 
Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin' ; 
That vile doup-skelper. Emperor Joseph, 
If Vemis yet had got his nose off ; 
Or how the coUiesbangie works 
Atwcen the Russians and the Turks ; 



French mischief was 



Or if the Swede, before he halt. 
Would play anither Charles the Twalt : 
If Denmark, any body spaH o't; 
Or Poland, wha had now the tack o't ; 
How cut-throat Prussian blades wert 

hingin ; 
How libbet Italy was singin ; 
If Spaniard, Portuguese, or Swiss, 
Were sayin or takin aught amiss ; 
Or how our merry lads at hame. 
In Britain's court, kept up the game : 
How royal George, the Lord Jeuk o'er 

him ! 



THE RICHTS OF WOMAl^. 



ttl 



Was managing St. Stephen's quorum ; 
If sleekit Chatham Will was livin, 
Or glaikit Charlie got his nieve in ; 
How daddie Burke the plea was cookin, 
If Warren Hastings' neck was yeukin ; 
How cesses, stents, and fees were rax'd, 
Or if bare a — s yet were tax'd ; 
The news o' princes, dukes, and earls, 
Pimps, sharpers, bawds, and opera -girls ; 
If that daft buckie, Geordie Wales, 
Was threshin still athizzies' tails ; 
Or if he was grown oughtlins douser, 
And no a perfect kintra cooser. — 
A* this and mair I never heard of; 



And, but for you, I might despair'd of 
So gratefu', back your news I send you. 
And pray a' guid things may attend you ! 
EUisland, Monday Morning, 1790. 

Remonstrance to the Gentleman to whom 
the foregoing Poem was addressed. 

Dear Peter, dear Peter, 

We poor sons of metre 
Are often negleckit, ye ken ; 

For instance, your sheet, man, 

(Though glad I'm to see't, man,) 
I get it no ae day in ten. — R.B. 



LINES ON AN INTERVIEW WITH LORD DAER. 



This wot ye all whom it concerns, 
I Rhymer Robin, alias Burns, 

October twenty-third, 
A ne'er to be forgotten day, 
Sae far I sprachled up the brae, 

I dinner'd wi' a Lord. 

I've been at druken writers' feasts, 
Nay, been bitch-fou 'mang godly priests, 

Wi' rev'rence be it spoken ; 
I've even join'd the honour'd jorum. 
When mighty Squireships of the quorum 

Their hydra drouth did sloken. 

But wi' a Lord — stand out my shin ; 
A Lord — a Peer — an Earl's son. 

Up higher yet, my bonnet ! 
And sic a Lord — lang Scotch ells twa, 
Our Peerage he o'erlooks them a', 

As I look o'er my sonnet. 

But, O for Hogarth's magic pow'r ! 
To show Sir Bardie's willyart glow'r, 
Andhowhestar'dand stammer'd, 



When goavan, as if led wi' branks, 
An' stumpin on his ploughman shanks, 
He in the parlour h^mmer'd. 

I sidling shelter'd in a nook, 
An' at his Lordship steal't a look, 

Like some portentous omen ; 
Except good sense and social glee, 
An' (what surprised me) modesty, 

I marked nought uncommon. 

I watch'd the symptoms o' the Great, 
The gentle pride, the lordly state, 

The arrogant assuming ; 
The fient a pride, nae pride had he, 
Nor sauce, nor state that I could see, 

Mair than an honest ploughman, 

Then from his lordship I shall learn, 
Henceforth to meet with unconcern 

One rank as weel's another ; 
Nae honest worthy man need care 
To meet with noble youthful Daer, 

For he but meets ^ brother. 



THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 

PROLOGUE SPOKEN BV MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFIT-NIGHT. [nOV. 26. 17g2.] 

While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, 
The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings ; 
While quacks of State must each produce his plan 
And even children lisp The Rights of Man • ' 



tn MISS FONTENELLE. 



Amid the mighty fuss just let me mention, 
The Rights of Woman merit some attention. 

First, in the Sexes' intermix'd connexion, 
One sacred Right of Woman is, Protection. — 
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate, 
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of Fate, 
Sunk on the earth, defacM its lovely form, 
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm. 

Our second Right — but needless here is caution, 
To keep that Right inviolate 's the fashion, 
Each man of sense has it so full before him, 
He'd die before he'd wrong it — 'tis Decorum. 
There was, indeed, in far less polish'd days, 
A time, when rough rude man had naughty ways ; 
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot. 
Nay, even thus invade a Lady's quiet ! — 
Now, thank our stars ! those Gothic times are fled ; 
Now, well-bred men — and you are all well-bred ! 
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers) 
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners. 

For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest. 
That Right to fluttering female hearts the nearest, 
Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration 
Most humbly own — 'tis dear, dear admiration ! 
In that blest sphere alone we live and move ; 
There taste that life of life — immortal love. — 
Sighs, tears, smiles, glances, fits, flirtations, airs, 
'Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares — 
When avv^ul Beauty joins with all her charms. 
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms ? 

Then truce virith kings, and truce with constitutions. 
With bloody armaments and revolutions ! 
Let Majesty your first attention summon. 
Ah ! ca ira ! The Majesty of Woman ] 



ADDRESS, SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE, 

ON HER BENEFIT-NIGHT, DECEMBER 4, 1795, 
AT THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES. 

Still anxious to secure your partial favour, 
And not less anxious, sure*, this night, than ever, 
A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter, 
'Twould vamp my bill, said 1, if nothing better ; 
So sought a Poet, roosted near the skies. 
Told him I came to feast my curious eyes ; 
Said, nothing like his works was ever printed ; 
And last, my Prologue-business slily hinted. 
'Ma'am, let me tell you,' quoth my man of rhymes, 
* I know your bent —these are no laughing times : 



VEJ^SES TO A YOUNG IADV. 03 



Can you — ^but, Miss, I own I have my fears — 
Dissolve in pause — and sentimental tears ? 
With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence, 
Rouse from his sluggish slumbers fell Repentance j 
Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand, 
Waving on high the desolating brand. 
Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land ?' 

I could no more — askance the creature eyeing, 
D'ye think, said I, this face was made for crying ? 
I'll laugh, that's poz — nay, more, the world shall know it ; 
And so, your servant ! gloomy Master Poet ! 

Firm as my creed. Sirs, 'tis my fix'd belief, 
That Misery's another word for Grief; 
I also think — so may I be a bride ! 
That so much laughter, so much life enjoy'd. 

Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh. 
Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye ; 
Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive — 
To make three guineas do the work of five : 
Laugh in Misfortune's face — the beldam witch ! 
Say, you'll be merry, tho' you can't be rich. 

Thou other man of care, the wretch in love, 
Who long with jiltish arts and airs hast strove ; 
Who, as the boughs all temptingly project, 
Measur'st in desperate thought — a rope^-thy neck — 
Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep, 
Peerest to meditate the healing leap : 
Wouldst thou be cur'd, thou silly, moping elf ? 
Laugh at her follies — laugh e'en at thyself : 
Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific, 
And love a kinder — that's your grand specific 

To sum up all, be merry, I advise ; 
And as we're merry, may we still be wise. 



VERSES TO A YOUNG LADY 

WITH A PRESENT OF SONGS. 

Here, where the Scottish Muse immortal lives. 
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd, 

Accept the gift ; tho' humble he who gives, 
Rich is the tribute of the grateful' mind. 

So may no ruffian-feeling in thy breast 
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among ! 

But Peace attune thy gentle soul to rest, 
Or Love, ecstatic, wake his seraph song ! 

Or Pity's notes, in luxuiy of tears. 
As modest Want the tale of woe reveals ; 

While conscious Virtue all the strain endears, 
And heaven-born Pietv her sanction seals I 



114 



POEM^. 



POEM ON PASTORAL POETRY. 



Hail, Poesie ! thou Nymph reserv'd ! 
In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerv'd 
Frae common sense, or sunk enerv'd 

'Mang heaps o' clavers ; 
And och ! o'er aft thy joes hae starv'd, 

'Mid a' thy favours ! 

Say, Lassie, why thy tram amang, 
While loud the trump's heroic clang, 
And sock or buskin skelp alang 

To death or marriage ; 
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang 

But wi' miscarriage ? 

In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives ; 
Eschylus' pen Will Shakespeare drives ; 
Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives 

Horatian fame ; 
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives 

Evien Sappho's flame. 

But thee, Theocritus, wha matches ? 
They're no herd'sballats, Maro's catches; 
Squire Pope but busks, his skinklin 
patches 

O' heathen tatters :. 
I pass by hunders, nameless wretches. 

That ape their betters. 

In this braw age o' wit and'Iear, 
Willnane the Shepherd's' whistle mair 
Blaw sweetly in its native air 



And rural grace ; 
And wi' the far-fam'd Grecian share 
A rival place ? 

Yes ! there is ane ; a Scottish callan — 
There's ane ; come forrit, honest Allan ! 
Thou need na jouk behint the hallan, 

A chiel sae clever ; 
The teeth o' Time may gnaw Tamtallan, 

But thou's for ever I 

Thou paints auld Nature to the nines, 

In thy sweet Caledonian lines ; 

Nae gowden stream thro' myrtles twines, 

W^here Philomel, 
While nightly breezes sweep the vines, 

Her griefs will tell ! 

In gowany glens thy burnie strays, 
Where bonie lasses bleach their claes ; 
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, 

Wi' hawthorns gray, 
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's 
lays 

At close o' day. 

Thy rui"al loves are nature's sel' ; 
Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell ; 
Nae snap conceits ; but that sweet spell 

O' witchin' love ; 
That charm that can the strongest quell, 

The sternest move. 



WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF THE LAST EDITION 

OF HIS POEMS, 



PRESENTED TO THE LADY WHOM HE HAD OFTEN CELEBRATED 
UNDER THE NAME OF CHLORIS. 



'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair 
friend. 

Nor thou the gift refuse. 
Nor with unwilling ear attend 

The moralizing Muse. 

Since thou, in all thy youth and charms. 
Must bid the world adieu. 



(A world 'gainst peace in constant arms) 
To join the friendly few. 



Since, thy gay mom of life o'ercast. 
Chill came the tempest's lower, 

(And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast 
Did nip a fairer flower.; 



TO MR. WILL. 


I AM TYTLER. ir^ 


Since life's gay scenes must charm no 


And, dearest gift of heaven below, 


more, 


Thine friendship's truest heart. 


Still much is left behind ; 




Still nobler wealth hast thou in store — 




The comforts of the mind ! 


The joys refin'd of sense and taste. 




With eveiy muse to rove : 


Thine is the self-approving glow. 


And doubly were the poet blest, 


On conscious honour's part ; 


These joys could he improve. 



POETICAL ADDRESS TO MR. WILLIAM TYTLER, 

WITH THE PRESENT OF THE BARD's PICTURE. 

Revered defender of beauteous Stuart, 

Of Stuart, a na'me once respected, 
A name, which to love, was the mark of a true heart, 

But now 'tis despis'd and neglected. 

Tho' something like moisture conglobes in my eye, 

Let no one misdeem me disloyal ; 
A poor friendless wand'rer may well claim a sigh, 

Still more, if that wand'rer were royal. 

My fathers that name have rever'd on a throne ; 

My fathers have fallen to right it ; 
Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son, 

That name should he scoffingly slight it. 

Still in prayers for King George I most heartily join, 

The Queen, and the rest of the gentry. 
Be they wise, be they foolish, is nothing of mine ; 

Their title's avow d by my country. 

But why of this epocha make such a fuss. 

That gave us the Hanover stem ? 
If bringing them over was lucky for us, 

I'm sure 'twas as lucky for them. 

But, loyalty, truce ! we're on dangerous ground. 

Who knows how the fashions may alter ? 
The doctrine, to-day, that is loyalty sound. 

To-morrow may bring us a halter. 

I send you a trifle, a head of a bard, 

A trifle scarce worthy your care ; 
But accept it, good Sir, as a mark of regard, 

Sincere as a saint's dying prayer. 

Now life's chilly evening dim shades in your eye, 

And ushers the long dreary night ; 
But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky, 

Your course to the latest is bright. 



ri6 



ON MR. WILLIAM SMELLIE. 



SKETCH.— NEW-YEAR DAY. [1790.] 

TO MRS. DUNI.OP. 



This day Time winds th' exhausted 

chain, 
To run the twelvemonth's length again : 
I see the old, bald-pated fellow, 
With ardent eyes, complexion sallow, 
Adjust the unimpair'd machine 
To wheel the equal, dull routine. 

The absent lover, minor heir, 
In vain assail him with their prayer, 
Deaf, as my friend, he sees them press, 
Nor makes the hour one moment less. 
Will you (the Major's with the hounds, 
The happy tenants share his rounds ; 
Coila's fair Rachel's care to-day, 
And blooming Keith's engaged with 

Gray) 
From housewife cares a minute borrow — 
— That grandchild's cap will do to- 
morrow — 
And join with me a moralizing, 
This day's propitious to be wise in. 

First, what did yesternight deliver? 

* Another year has gone for ever.' 
And what is this day's strong suggestion ? 

* The passing moment's all we rest on !' 
Rest on — for what ? what do we here ? 
Or why regard the passing year ? 



Will Time, amus'd with proverb'd lore, 
Add to our date one minute more ? 
A few days may, a few years must, 
Repose us in the silent dust ; 
Then is it wise to damp our bliss ? 
Yes — all such reasonings are amiss ! 
The voice of Nature loudly cries, 
And many a message from the skies, 
That something in us never dies ; 
That on this frail, uncertain state 
Hang matters of eternal weight ; 
That future-life in worlds unknown 
Must take its hue from this alone ; 
"Whether as heavenly glory bright, 
Or dark as misery's vvoful night. — 

Since then, myhonor'd, first of friends, 
On this poor being all depends ; 
Let us th' important Now employ. 
And live as those that never die. 

Tho' you, with days and honors 
crown'd, 
Witness that filial circle round, 
(A sight — life's sorrows to repulse ; 
A sight — pale Envy to convulse ;) 
Others may claim your chief regard ; 
Yourself, you wait your bright reward. 



EXTEMPORE, ON MR. WILLIAM SMELLIE, 

AUTHOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL HISTORV, 
AND MEMBER OF THE ANTIQUARIAN AND ROYAL SOCIETIES OF EDINBURGH. 

To Crochallan came. 
The old cock'd hat, the grey surtout, the same ; 
His bristling beard just rising in its might, 
'Twas four long nights and days to shaving night ; 
His uncomb'd grizzly locks wild staring, thatch'd 
A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch'd 
Yet tho' his caustic wit was biting, rude. 
His heart was warm, benevolent, and good. 



MONQD Y ON A LAD Y. 117 

INSCRIPTION FOR AN ALTAR 

TO INDEPENDENCE, AT KERROUGHTRY, SEAT OF MR. HERON, WRITTEN IN gUMlVTER, 17)5. 

Thou of an independent mind, 
With soul resolv'd, with soul resign'd ; 
Prepar'd Power's proudest frown to brave, 
Who wilt not be, nor have a slave ; 
Virtue alone who dost revere, 
Thy own reproach alone dost fear. 
Approach this shrine, and worship here. 

MONODY ON A LADY FAMED FOR HER CAPRICE. 

How cold is that bosom which folly once fired. 
How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten'd ! 

How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tir'd. 
How dull is that ear which to flattery so listen'd 



I 



If sorrow and anguish their exit await. 
From friendship and dearest affection remov'd ; 

How doubly severer, Maria, thy fate. 
Thou diedst unwept, as thou livedst unlov'd. 

Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you , 
So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear : 

But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true. 
And flowers let us cull for Maria's cold bier. 

We'll search thro' the garden for each silly flower. 
We'll roam through the forest for each idle weed ; 

But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower, 

For none e'er approach'd her but rued the rash deed. 

We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the lay ; 

Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre ; 
There keen Indignation shall dart on her prey, 

Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his irc- 



THE EPITAPH. 

Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, 
What once was a butterfly, gay in life's beam 

Want only of wisdom denied her respect. 
Want only of goodness denied her esteem. 



Its 



ON MRS. RIDDEL'S BIRTHDAY. 



SONNET, ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RIDDEL, ESQ: 
OF GLENRIDDEL. 

M/ri/, 1794.J 

No more ye warblers of the wood— no more ! 

Nor pour your descant, grating on my soul ; 

Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stole. 
More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest roar. 

How can ye charm, ye flow'rs, with all your dyes ? 

Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend ; 

How can I to the tuneful strain attend? 
That strain flows round th* untimely ton\J) where Riddel lies. 

Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of woe I 
And soothe the Virtues, weeping o'er his bier : 
The Man of Worth, and has not left his peer. 

Is in his "narrow house" for ever darkly low. 

Thee, Spring, again with joys shall others greet ; 
Me, mem'ry of my loss will only meet. 



IMPROMPTU, ON MRS. RIDDEL'S BIRTHDAY, 
NOVEMBER 4, 1793. 



Old Winter with his frosty beard. 
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferr'd, — 
* What have I done of all the year. 
To bear this hated doom severe ? 
My cheerless suns no pleasure know ;. 
Night's horrid car drags, dreary slow ; 
My dismal months no joys are crowning. 
But spleeny English, hanging, drowning. 
Now, Jove, for once be mighty civil. 



To counterbalance all this evil ; 
Give me, and I've no more to say. 
Give me Maria's natal day ! 
That brilliant gift will so enrich me. 
Spring, Summer, Autumn, cannot match 

me ; 
* 'Tis done ! ' says Jove ; so ends my 

story. 
And Winter once rejoic'd in glory. 



TO A YOUNG LADY, MISS JESSY LEWARS, DUMFRIES, 

WITH BOOKS WHICH THli BARD PRESENTED HER- [jUNE 26TH, 1796.J 



Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair. 
And with them take the Poet's prayer— 
That fate may in her fairest page, 
With every kindliest, best presage 
Of future bliss, enrol thy name ; 
With native worth, and spoUess fame. 



And wakeful caution still aware 
Of ill — but chief, man's felon snare : 
All blameless joys on earth we find. 
And all the treasures of the mind — 
These be thy guardian and reward ; 
So prays thy faithful friend, the Bard. 



TO MR. SYME. 



119 



VERSES 

•WRITTEN UNDER VIOLENT GRIEF. 



Accept the gift & friend sincere 

Wad on thy worth be pressin' ; 
Remembrance oft may start a tear, 
But oh ! that tenderness forbear, 
Though 'twad my sorrows lessen. 

My morning raise sae clear and fair, 

I thought sair storms wad never 
Bedew the scene ; but grief and care 
In wildest fury hae made bare 
My peace, my hope, for ever ! 



You think I'm glad ; oh, I pay weel 

For a' the joy I borrow, 
In solitude — then, then I feel 
I canna to mysel' conceal 

My deeply- ranklin' sorrow. 

Farewell ! within thy bosom free 

A sigh may whiles awaken ; 
A tear may wet thy laughin* ee. 
For Scotia's son — ance gay like thee — 
Now hopeless, comfortless, forsaken I 



EXTEMPORE TO MR. SYME, 

ON REFUSING TO DINE WITH HIM, 
AFTER HAVING BEEN PROMISED THE FIRST OF COMPANY, AND THE FIRST OF COOKERY. 

XT th December, 1795. 

No more of your guests, be they titled or not. 

And cook'ry Ihe first in the nation ; 
Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit. 

Is proof to all other temptation. 



TO MR. SYME, 

WITH A PRESENT OF A DOZEN OF PORTER. 

O, HAD the malt thy strength of mind. 

Or hops the flavour of thy wit, 
'Twere drink for first of human kind, 
A gift that e'en for Syme were fit. 
yeriesalem Tavern, Dnvtfries. 



SONNET, 

ON HEARING A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK IN J.\NUARY, WRITTEN 25TH JANUARY, 1793, 
THE BIRTH-DAY OF THE AUTHOR. 

SiNG on, sweet Thrush, upon the leafless bough ; 

Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain : 

See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign, 
At thy biythe carol clears his furrow'd brow. 



120 



TO A GENTLEMAN. 



So in lone Poverty's dominion drear 

Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart. 
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part, 

Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear. 

I thank thee, Author of this opening day ! 

Thou whose bright sun now gilds the orient skies ! 

Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys, 
What wealth could never give nor take away ! 

Yet come, thou child of poverty and care ; 

The itiite high Heaven bestow' d, that mite with thee I'll share. 



POEM, ADDRESSED TO MR. MITCHELL, 

COLLECTOR OF EXCISE, DUMFRIES, [DECEMBER, I79S.J 



Friend of the Poet, tried and leal, 
Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal ; 
Alake, alake, the meikle Deil 

Wi' a' his witches 
Are at it, skelpin ! jig and reel. 

In my poor pouches. 

I modestly fu' fain wad hint it, 

That one pound one, I sairly want it : 

If wi' the hizzie down ye sent it, 

It would be kind ; 
And while my heart wi' life-blood dun ted, 

I'd bear't in mind. 

So "may the auld year gang out moaning 
To see the new come laden, groaning, 
Wi' double plenty o'er the loanin 

To thee and thine ; 
Domestic peace and comforts crowning 

The hale design. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Ye've heard this while how I've been 

licket, 
And by fell death was nearly nicket : 
Grim loon ! he gat me by the fecket. 

And sair me sheuk ; 
But by guid luck I lap a wicket. 

And tum'd a neuk. 

But by that health, I've got a share o't. 
And by that life, I'm promis'd mair o't, 
My heal and weal I'll take a care o't 

A tentier way : 
Then fareweel folly, hide and hair o't, 

For ance and aye. 



SENT TO A GENTLEMAN WHOM HE HAD OFFENDED. 



The friend whom wild from wisdom's 
way 

The fumes of wine infuriate send ; 
(Not moony madness more astray ;) 

Who but deolores that hapless friend ? 



Mine was th' insensate frenzied part. 
Ah why should I such scenes out- 
live ? 

Scenes so -abhorrent to my heart ! 
'Tis thine to pity and forgive, 



TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. 



121 



POEM ON LIFE, 

ADDRESSED TO COLONEL DE PEYSTER, DUMFRIES, 1796. 



My honoor'd Colonel, deep I feel 
Your interest in the Poet's weal ; 
Ah ! now sma' heart hae I to speel 

The steep Parnassus, 
Surrounded thus by bolus pill. 

And potion glasses. 

O what a canty warld were it. 

Would pain, and care, and sickness 

spare it ; 
And fortune favour worth and merit. 

As they deserve : 
(And aye a rowth, roast beef and claret ; 
Syne wha wad starve ?) 

Dame Life, tho* fiction out may trick her, 
And in paste gems and fripp'ry deck her; 
Oh ! flick'ring, feeble, and unsicker 

I've found her still, 
Aye wav'ring like the willow wicker, 

'Tween good and ill. 

Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan, 
Watches, like baudrons by a rattan. 
Our sinfu' saul to get a claut on 

Wi' fdon ire ; 
Syne, whip ! his tail ye'll ne'er cast 
saut on, 

He's off like fire. 



Ah Nick ! ah Nick ! it isna fair. 
First shewing us the tempting ware. 
Bright wines and bonie lasses rar^ 

To put us daft ; 
Sjme weave, miseen, thy spider snare 

O' hell's damn'd waft. 

Poor man, the flie, aft bizziesby, 
And aft as chance he comes thee nigh, 
Thy auld damn'd elbow yeuks wi' joy. 

And hellish pleasure ; 
Already in thy fancy's eye. 

Thy sicker treasure. 

Soon heels-o'er-gowdie ! in he gangs. 
And like a sheep-head on a tangs. 
Thy giming laugh enjoys his pangs 

And murd'ring wrestle. 
As, dangling in the wind, he hangs 

A gibbet's tassel. 

But lest you think I am uncivil^ 

To plague you with this draunting drivel, 

Abjuring a' intentions evil, 

I quat my pen : 
The Lord preserve us frae the Devil ? 

Amen ! amen ! 



TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTRY, 



ON RECEIVING A FAVOUR. 



I CALL no Goddess to inspire my strains, 
A fabled Muse may suit a Bard that 

feigns ; 
Friend of my life ! my ardent spiritburns, 
And all the tribute of my heart returns, 
For boons recorded, goodness ever new. 
The gift still dearer, as the giver you. 



Thou orb of day ! thou other paler light ! 
And all ye many sparkling stars of night ; 
If aught that giver from my mind efface ; 
If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace ; 
Then roll to me, along your wandering 

spheres. 
Only to number out ^ villain's years ! 



EPITAPH ON A FRIEND. 



An honest man here lies at rest, 
As e'er God with his image blest ; 
The friend of man, the friend of truth ; 
The friend of age, and guide of youth : 



Few hearts like his, with virtue waiWd, 
Few heads with knowledge so inform'd : 
If there's another world, he lives in blissj 
If there is none, he made the best of this. 



122 



VERSES WRITTEN- A T SELKIRK. 



VERSES WRITTEN AT SELKIRK, 

ADDRESSED TO 'MR. CREECH, I3TH MAY, 1787. 



AULD chuckle Reekie's sair distrest, 
Down droops her ance weel burnish' t 

crest, 
Nae joy her bonie buskit nest 

Can yield ava, 
Her darling bird that she lo'es best, 

Willie's awa ! 

O Willie was a witty wight, 
And had o' things an unco slight ; 
Auld Reekie ay he keepit tight, 

An' trig an' braw : 
But now they'll busk her like a fright, 

Willie's awa ! 

The stiffest o' them a' he bow'd ; 
The bauldest o' them a' he cow'd ; 
They durst nae mair than he allow'd, 

That was a law : 
We've lost a birkie weel worth gowd, 

Willie 's awa ! 

Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks, and 

fools, 
Frae colleges and boarding-schools. 
May sprout like simmer puddock-stools 

In glen or shaw ; 
He wha could brush them down to mools, 

Willie's awa ! 

The brethren o'the Commerce-Chaumer 
May mourn their loss wi' doolfu' clamour ; 
He was a dictionar and grammar 

Amang them a' ; 
I fear they'll now mak mony a stammer, 

Willie 's awa ! 

Nae mair we see his levee door 
Philosophers and Poets pour. 
And toothy critics by the score, 

In bloody raw. 
The adjutant o' a' the core, 

Willie's awa I 



Now worthy Gregory's Latin face, 
Tytler's and Greenfield's modest grace ; 
Mackenzie, Stewart, sic a brace 

As Rome ne'er saw ; 
They a' maun meet some ither place, 

Willie's awa ! 



Poor 



canna 



Burns e'en Scotch drink 
quicken, 
He cheeps like some bewilder'd chicken 
Scar'd frae its minnie and the cleckin 

By hoodie-craw ; 
Grief 's gien his heart an unco kickin', 
Willie's awa! 

Now ev'ry sour-mou'd grinnin' blelluni, 
And Calvin's folk, are fit to fell him ; 
And self-conceited .critic skellum 

His quill may draw ; 
He wha could bra wlie ward their bellum, 

Willie's awa! 

Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped, 
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed, 
And Ettrick banks now roaring red. 

While tempests blaw ; 
But every joy and pleasure s fled, 

Willie 's awa ! 

May I be Slander's common speech ; 
A text for infamy to preach ; 
And lastly, streekit out to bleach 

In winter snaw ; 
When I forget thee, Willie Creech, 

Tho' far awa ! 

May never wicked Fortune touzle him ! 
May never wicked men bamboozle him ! 
Until a pow as auld's Methusalem 

He canty claw ! 
Then to the blessed. New Jerusalem 

Fleet wing awa ! 



A GRACE BEFORE DINNER. ,123 



INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMBSTONE 

ERECTED BY BURNS TO THE MEMORY OF FERGUSSON. 

"Here lies Robert Fergusson, Poet, ' 
Born September 5th, 1751 — 
Diecl i6th October, 1774." 

No sculptur'd marble here, nor pompous lay, 
' No storied urn nor animated bust ; * 

This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way 
To pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust. 

She mourns, sweet tuneful youth, thy hapless fate, 
Tho' all the powers of song thy fancy fir'd, 

Yet Luxury and Wealth lay by in State, 
And thankless starv'd what they so much admir'd. 

This humble tribute with a tear he gives, 
A brother Bard, he can no more bastow : 

But dear to fame thy Song immortal lives, 
A nobler monument than Art can show. 



A GRACE BEFORE DINNER. 



O THOO, who kindly dost provide 
For every creature's want ! 

We bless* thee, God of Nature wide, 
For all thy goodness lent : 



And, if it please thee, Heavenly Guide, 

May never worse be sent ; 
But whether granted, or denied, 

Lord, bless us with content ! 

Amen ! 



A VERSE 

COMPOSED AND REPEATED BY BURNS, TO THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE, ON TAKING LEAVE 
AT A PLACE IN THE HIGHLANDS, WHERE HE HAD BEEN HOSPITABLY ENTERTAINED. 



When death's dark stream I ferry o'er, 
A time that surely shall come ; 

In Heaven itself I'll ask no more, 
Than just a Highland welcome. 



LIBERTY. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among. 
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song, 

To thee I turn with swimming eyes ; 
Where is that soiil of PVeedom fled ? 
Immingled with the mighty dead ! 

Beneath the hallow'd turf where Wallace lies ! 
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death ! 

Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep ; 
^ Disturb not ye the hero's sleep, 
Nor give the coward secret breath. 



124 



ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RUISSEAUX. 



Is this the power in Freedom's war. 

That wont to bid the battle rage ? 
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate. 

Crushing the despot's proudest bearing, 
That arm which, nerved with thundering fate, 

Brav'd usurpation's boldest daring ! 
One quencli'd in daricness like the sinking star. 
And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age. 

FRAGMENT OF AN ODE 

TO THE MEMORY OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART. 

False flatterer, Hope, away ! 
Nor think to lure us as in days of yore ; 

We solemnize this sorrowing natal-day 
To prove our loyal truth ; we can no more ; 

And owning Heaven's mysterious sway. 
Submissive low adore. 

Ye honour'd mighty dead ! 
Who nobly perish 'd in the glorious cause. 
Your king, your country, and her laws ! 

From gieat Dundee who smiling victory led, 
And fell a martyr in her arms 
(What breast of northern ice but warms ?) 

To bold Balmerino's undying name, 
Whose soul of fire, lighted kt heaven's high flame. 
Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim. 

Nor unavenged your fate shall be. 

It only lags the fatal hour ; 
Your blood shall with incessant cry 

Awake at last th' unsparing power ; 
As from the clifl", with thundering course, 

The snowy ruin smokes along. 
With doubling speed and gathering force, 
Till deep it crashing whelms the cottage in the vale ! 
So vengeance * » * * ♦ 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RUISSEAUX. 



Now Robirt lies in his last lair. 

He'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair, 

Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare, 

Nae mair shall fear him ; 
Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care, 

E'er mair come near him. 

To tell the truth, they seldom fash't him. 
Except the moment that they crush't 

him ; 
For sune as chance or fate had husht 'em, 



Tho' e'er sae short, 
Then wi' a rhyme or sang he laslit "em. 
And thought it sport. 

Tlio' he was bred to kintra wark, 
And counted was baith wight and stark. 
Yet that was never Robin's mark 

To mak a man ; 
But tell him, he was learn'd and dark. 

Ye roos'd him Ihao ' 



TO y LAPRAI/^. 



125 



ANSWER TO VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE POET 

liY THE GUIDWIIE or WAUCHOPE-HOWSE. [l?^?] 



GUIDVVIFE, 

I MIND it weel, in early date, 

When I was beardless, young and blate, 

An' first could thresh the barn. 
Or haud a yokin at the pleugh, 
An' tho' forfoiighten sair eneugh, 

Yet unco proud to learn : 
When first aniang the yellow corn 

A man I reckon'd was. 
And wi' the lave ilk merry morn 
Could rank my rig and lass. 
Still shearing, and clearing 

The tither stooked raw, 
Wi' claivers, an' haivers. 
Wearing the day awa : 

Ev'n then a wish, (1 mind its power,) 
A wish that to my latest hour 

Shall strongly heave my breast ; 
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake. 
Some usefu' plan, or beuk could make, 

Or sing a sang at least. 
The rough bur-thistle, spreading wide 

Amang the oearded bear, 
I turn'd the weeder-clips aside. 
An' spar'd the symbol dear : 
No nation, no station, 

My envy e'er could raise ; 
A. Scot still, but blot still, 
I knew nae higher praise. 

But still the elements o' sang 

In formless jumble, right an' wrang. 

Wild floated in my brain , 
Till on that har'st I said before, 
My partner in the merry core. 

She rous'd the forming strain : 
1 see her yet, the sonsie quean. 

That lighted up my jingle, 



Her witching smile, her pauky een, 
That gart my heart-strings tingle ; 
I fired, inspired, 

At ev'ry kindling keek, 
But bashing, and dashing, 
I feared aye to speak. 

Health to the sex, ilk guid chiel says, 
Wi' merry dance in winter days, 
An' we to share in common : 
The gust o' joy, the balm of woe, 
The saul o' life, the heav'n below, 

Is rapture-giving woman. 
Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name, 

Be mindfu' o' your mither : 
She, honest woman, may think shame 
That ye're connected with her, 
Ye're wae men, ye're nae men, 
That slight the lovely dears ; 
To shame ye, disclaim ye, 
Ilk honest birkie swears. 

For you, no bred to barn or byre, 
Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre, 

Thanks to you for your line : 
The marled plaid ye kindly spare. 
By n\e should gratefully be ware ; 

'Twad please me to the nine. 
I'd be more vauntie o' my hap. 

Douce hingin' owre my curple, 
Than ony ermine ever lap, 
Or proud imperial purple. 

Farewell then, lang heal then,, 

An' plenty be your fa' : 
May losses and crosses 
Ne'er at your hallan ca\ 

March, tjSj. 



TO J. LAPRAIK. 

SEPT. 13TH, 1785. 

GuiD speed an' furder to you, Johny, I The staff o' bread, 

Guid health, hale ban's, and weather May ye ne'er want a stoup o' bran'y 

bonie To clear your head. 

Now when ye're nickan down fu' cany 



126 



THE TWA HERDS. 



May Boreas never thresh your rigs, 
Nor kick your rickles aff their legs, 
^endin' the stuff o'er muirs an' hags 

Like drivin' wrack ; 
But may the tapmast grain that wags 

Come to the sack. 

I'm bizzie too, an' skelpin' at it, 

But bitter, daudin showers hae wat it, 

Sae my auld stumpie pen I gat it 

Wi' muckle wark. 
An' took my jocteleg an' whatt it. 

Like onie clerk. 

It's now twa month that I'm your debtor. 
For your braw, nameless, dateless letter, 
Abusin' me for harsh ill-nature 

On holy men. 
While Deil a hair yoursel* ye' re better. 

But mair profane. 

But let the kirk -folk ring their bells, 
Let's sing about our noble sels ; 
We'll cry nae jads frae heathen hills 

To help, or roose us. 
But browster wives an* whisky stills, 

They are the Muses. 



Your friendship, Sir, I winna quat it, 
An' if ye make objections at it, 
Then han* in nieve some day we'll 
knot it, 

An' witness take. 
An' when wi' Usquebae we've wat it 

It winna break. 

But if the beast and branks be spar'd 
Till kye be gaun without the herd, 
An' a' the vittel in the yard. 

An' theekit right, 
I mean your ingle-side to guard 

Ae winter night. 

Then muse-inspirin' aqua-vitae 

Shall make uslDaith sae blithe an' witty 

Till ye forget ye're auld an' gatty, 

An' be as canty 
As ye were nine yeai-s less than thretty. 

Sweet ane an' twenty ! 

But stooks are cowpet wi' the blast, 
An' now the sinn keeks in the west. 
Then I maun rin amang the rest 

An' quit my chanter ; 
Sae I subscribe mysel in haste, 

Yours, Rab the Ranter. 



THE TWA HERDS. [April 1785.J 

BlockJuads ivith reason luicked wits abhor. 
But Fool ivith Fool is barbarous civil war. 

Pope. 



O a' ye pious godly flocks, 
Weel fed on pastures orthodox, 
Wha now will keep you frae the fox, 

Or worrying tykes ? 
Or wha will tent the waifs and crocks. 

About the dykes ? 



The twa best herds in a' the wast, 
That e'er gae gospel horn a blast, 
These five and twenty summers past, 

O dool to tell ! 
Hae had a bitter black out-cast, 

Atween themsel. 



O, Moodie, man, and wordy Russel, 
How could you raise so vile a bustle, 
Ye'll see how new-light herds will 
whistle, 

And think it fine ! 
The Lord's cause ne'er gat sic a twistk. 

Sin' I hae min'. 

O, Sirs, whae'er wad hae expeckit. 

Your duty ye wad sae negleckit. 

Ye wha were ne'er by lairds respeckit, 

To wear the plaid, 
But by the brutes themselves eleckit 

To be their guide. 



THE TWA HERDS. 



127 



What flock wi' Moodie's flock could rank, 
Sae hale and hearty every shank, 
I^ae poison'd soor Arminians tank 

He let them taste, 
Frae Calvin's well, aye clear, they drank: 

O' sic a feast ! 

The thummart wil'-cat, brock and tod, 
Weel kend his voice thro' a' the wood, 
He smell'd their ilka hole and road, 

Baith out and in, 
And weel he lik'd to shed their bluid. 

And sell their skin. 

What herd like Russel tell'd his tale. 
His voice was heard thro' rauir and dale, 
He kend the Lord's sheep, ilka tail, 

O'er a' the height. 
And saw gin they were sick or hale. 

At the first sight. 

He fine a mangy sheep could scrub. 

Or nobly fling the gospel club. 

And new-light herds could nicely drub. 

Or pay their skin, 
Could shake them owre the burning dub. 

Or heave them in. 

Sic twa — O ! do I live to see't. 
Sic famous twa should disagreet, 
An' names, like 'villain,' 'hypocrite,' 

Ilk ither gi'en. 
While new-light herds wi' laughin' spite, 

Say, 'neithei's liein' ! 

A' ye wha tent the gospel fauld, 
There's Duncan deep, and Peebles 

shaul, 
But chiefly thou, apostle Auld, 
We trust in thee. 
That thou wilt work them, hot and 
cauld. 

Till they agree. 

Consider, Sirs, how we're beset. 
There's scarce a new herd that we get, 



But comes frae 'mang that cursed set 

I winna name, 
I hope frae heaven to see them yet 

In fiery flame. 

Dalrymple has been lang our fae, 
M'Gill has wrouglit us meikle wae. 
And that curs'd rascal ca'd M'Quhae, 

And baith the Shaws, 
That aft hae made us black and blae, 

Wi' vengefu' paws. 

Auld Wodrow lang has hatch'd mischief. 
We thought aye death wad bring relief, 
But he has gotten, to our grief, 

Ane to succeed him, 
A chiel wha'll soundly buff our beef; 

I meikle dread him. 

And monie a ane that I could tell, 
Wha fain would openly rebel, 
Forby turn-coats amang oursel. 

There's Smith for ane, 
I doubt he's but a grey nick quill. 

And that ye'll fin'. 

O ! a' ye flocks, owre a' the hills. 

By mosses, meadows, moors, and fells, 

Come join your counsels and your skills, 

To cowe the lairds, 
And get the brutes the power themsels 

To choose their herds. 

Then Orthodoxy yet may prance. 
And Learning in a woody dance, 
And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense, 

That bites sae sair, 
Be banish'd owre the seas to France ; 

Let him bark there. 

Then Shaw's and D'rymple's eloquence, 
M'Gill's close nervous excellence, 
M'Quhae's pathetic manly sense. 

And guid M'Math, 
Wi' Smith, wha thro' the heart can 
glance, 

May a' pack aff. 



128 TO THE REV. JOHN M'MATK 



TO-THEHEV. JOHN M'MATH, 

ENCLOSING A COPY OF HOLY WILLIE's PRAYER, WHICH HE HAD REQUESTED, 

Sept. 1-jtk, 1785. 

While at the stock the shearers cowr 
To shun the bitter blaudin' shoVr, 
Or in guh-avage rinnin scour 

To pass the time, 
To you I dedicate the hour 

In idle rhyme. 

My Musie, tir'd wi' monie a sonnet 

On gown, an' ban', an' douse black Ironnet, 

Is grown right eerie now she's done it, 

Lest they shou'd blame her. 
An* rouse their holy thunder on it, 

And anathem hen 

I own 'twas rash, and rather hardy, 
That I, a simple countra bardie, 
Shou'd meddle wi' a pack so sturdy, 

Wha, if they ken me, 
Can easy, wi' a single wordie^ 

Lowse hell upon me. 

But I gae mad at their grimaces. 

Their sighin', cantin', grace-proud faces. 

Their th^ee-mile prayers, and hauf-mile graces. 

Their raxin' conscience, 
Whase greed, revenge, an' pride disgraces 

Waur nor their nonsense. 

There's Gaun, misca't waur than a beast, 
"Wha has mair honour in his breast 
Than monie scores as guid's the priest 
y Wha sae abus'd him ; 

An* may a bard no crack his jest 

What way they've us'd him? 

See him, the poor man's friend in need, 
The gentleman in word an' deed, 
An' shall his fame an' honour bleed 

By worthless skellums. 
An* no a Muse erect her head 

To cowe the blellums? 



TO THE kEV. yOHN M'MATH, 12^ 



O Pope, had I thy satire's darts 
To gie the rascals their deserts, 
I'd rip their rotten, hollow hearts, 

An' iell aloud 
Their jugglin' hocus-pocus arts 

To cheat the crowd. 



God knows, I'm no the thing I shou'd be. 
Nor am I even the thing I could be. 
But, twenty times, I rather would be 

An atheist clean. 
Than under gospel colours hid be. 

Just for a screen. 

An honest man may like a glass. 
An honest man may like a lass. 
But mean revenge, an' malice fause. 

He'll still disdain. 
An' then cry zeal for gospel. laws. 

Like some we ken. 



They tak religion in their mouth ; 
They talk o' mercy, grace, an* truth. 
For what ? to gie their malice skouth 

On some puir wight. 
An' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth,. 

To ruin straight. 

All hail. Religion ! maid divine ! 
Pardon a muse sae mean as mine, 
Who in her rough imperfect line 

Thus daurs to name thee ; 
To stigmatize false friends of thine 

Can ne'er defame thee. 



Tho' blotcht an' foul wi' monie a stain. 

An' far unworthy of thy train, 

Wi' trembling voice I tune my strain 

To join wi' those. 
Who boldly daur thy cause maintain 

In spite o' foes : 



In spite o' crowds, in spite o' mobs. 
In spite of undermining jobs, 
In spite o' dark banditti stabs 

At worth an' merit. 
By scoundrels, even wi' holy robes. 

But hellish spirit. 



130 



HOL Y WILLIE'S PR A YER, 



O Ayr ! my dear, iiny native ground ! 
Within thy presbyterial bound, 
A candid lib'ral band is found 

Of public teachers. 
As men, as Christians too, renown'd, 

An' manly preachers. 

Sir, in that circle you are nam'd ; 
Sir, in that circle you are fam'd ; 
An' some, by whom your doctrine's blam'd, 

(Which gies you honour, ) 
Even, Sir, by them your heart's esteem'd. 

An' winning manner. 

Pardon this freedom I have ta'en, 
An' if impertinent I've been, 
Impute it not, good Sir, in ane 

Whase heart ne'er wrang'd ye, 
But to his utmost would befriend 

Ought that belang'd ye. 



HOLY WILLIE'S PRAYER. 



Thou, wha in the Heavens doSt 

dwell, 
Wha, as it pleases best thysel'. 
Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, 

A' for thy glory, 
And no for onie guid or ill 

They've done afore thee ! 

1 bless and praise thy matchless might. 
Whan thousands thou hast left in night, 
That I am here afore thy sight, 

For gifts an' grace, 
A burnin an' a shinin light, 

To a' this place. 

What was I, or my generation, 
That I should get sic exaltation? 
I, wha deserve sic just damnation. 

For broken laws, 
Five thousand years 'fore my creation, 

Thro' Adam's cause. 

When frae my milher's womb I fell. 
Thou might hae plunged me in hell. 
To gnash my gums, to weep and wail, 

In burnin' lake. 
Where damned devils roar and yell, 

Chain'd to a stakes 



Yet I am here a chosen sample. 

To show thy grace is great and ample ; 

I'm here a pillar in thy temple. 

Strong as a rock, 
A guide, a buckler, an example 

To a' thy flock. 

O Lord, thou kens what zeal I bear, 
When drinkers drink, and swearers 

swear. 
And singin there and dancin here, 

Wi' great an' sma' : 
For I am keepit by thy fear. 

Free frae them a'. 

But yet, O Lord I confess I must. 
At times I'm fash'd wi' fleshly lust. 
An' sometimes too, wi' warldly trust. 

Vile self gets in ; 
But thou remembers we are dust, 

Defil'd in sin. 

O Lord ! yestreen, thou kens, wi' Meg — 

Thy pardon I sincerely beg, 

O ! may it ne'er be a livin plague 

To my dishonour, 
An* I'll ne'er lift a lawless leg 

Again upon her. 



EPITAPH OM HOLY WILLIE, 



«3« 



Besides I farther maun allow, 

Wi' Lizzie's lass, three times I trow ; 

But Lord, that Friday I was fou, 

When I came near her, 
Or else thou kens thy servant true 

Wad ne'er hae steer'dher. 

May be thou lets this fleshly thorn 
Beset thy servant e'en and morn, 
Lestheowrehigh and proud should turn, 

Cause he's sae gifted ; 
If sae, thy hand maun e'en be borne. 

Until thou lift it. 

Lord, bless thy chosen in this place, 
For here thou hast a chosen race ; 
But God confound their stubborn face, 

And blast their name, 
Wha bring thy elders to disgrace, 

An' public shame. 

Lord, mind Gawn Hamilton's deserts, 
He drinks, an' swears, an* plays at cartes. 
Yet has sae monie takin arts, 

Wi' grit an' sma', 
Frae God's ain priest the people's hearts 

He steals awa\ 

An' whan we chasten'd him therefore, 
Thou kens how he bred sic a splore. 
As set the warld in a foar 



O' laughin at us ; 
Curse thou his basket and his store, 
Kail and potatoes. 

Lord, hear my earnest cry an' prayV, 
Against that presbyt'ry o' Ayr ; 
Thy strong right band, Lord, make it 
bare, 

Upo' their heads ; 
Lord, weigh it down, and dinna spare, 
For their misdeeds. 

O Lord my God, thatglib-tongu'd Aiken, 
My very heart and soul are quakin. 
To think how we stood sweatin, shakin, 

An' p — d wi* dread. 
While he, wi* hingin lips an' snakin, 

Held up his head. 

Lord, in the day of vengeance try him ; 
Lord, visit them wha did employ him, 
And pass not in thy mercy by 'em. 

Nor hear their pray'r : 
But, for thy people's sake, destroy 'em. 

And dinna spare 

But, Lord, remember me and mine 
Wi' mercies temp'ral and divine, 
That I for gear and grace may shine, 

Excell'd by nane^ 
An* a* the glory shall be thine, 

Amen, Amen, 



EPITAPH ON HOLY WILLIE. 



Here Holy Willie's sair worn clay 

Taks up its last abode ; 
His saul has taen some other way, 

I fear the left-hand road. 

Stop ! there lie is, as sure's a gun, 
Poor silly body, see him ; 

Nae wonder he's as black's the grun, 
Observe wha's standing wi' him. 

Your brunstane devilship, I see. 
Has got him there before ye ; 



But baud your nine-tail cat a-we«. 
Till ance you've heard my story. 

Your pity I will not implore^ 

For pity ye have nane ; 
Justice, alas ! has gien him o'er. 

And mercy's day is gane. 

But hear me. Sir, deil as ye are, 
Look something to your credit ; 

A coof like him wad stain your name. 
If it were kent ye did it. 

K9 



Ui 



TO GAVIN HAMILTON^ ESQ. 



ON SCARING SOME WATER FOWL 

IN LOCH-TURIT, A WILD SCENE AMONG THE HILLS OF OCHTERTYRE. 



Why, ye tenants of the lake, 
For me your wat'ry haunt forsake ? 
Tell me, fellow-creatures, why 
At my presence thus you fly ? 
"Why disturb your social joys, 
Parent, filial, kindred ties ? — 
Common friend to you and me. 
Nature's gifts to all are free : 
Peaceful keep your dimpling wave. 
Busy feed, or wanton lave ; 
Or, beneath the sheltering rock, 
Bide the surging billow's shock. 

Conscious, blushing for our race, 
Soon, too soon, your fears 1 trace. 
Man, your proud, usurping foe. 
Would be lord of all below ; 
Plumes himself in Freedom's pride. 
Tyrant stern to all beside. 

The eagle, from the cliffy brow. 
Marking you his prey below, 



In his breast no pity dwells, 
Strong Necessity compels. 
But Man, to whom alone is giv'n 
A ray direct from pitying Heav'n, 
Glories in his heart humane — 
And creatures for his pleasure slain. 

In these savage, liquid plains. 
Only known to wand'ring swains. 
Where the mossy riv'let strays, 
Far from human haunts and ways ; 
All on Nature you depend, 
And life's poor season peaceful spend. 

Or, if man's superior might 
Dave invade your native right, 
On the lofty ether borne, 
Man M'ith all his pow'rs you scorn ; 
Swiftly seek, on clanging wings. 
Other lakes and other springs ; 
And the foe you cannot brave, ^ 
I Scorn at least to be his slave. 



TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. MAUCHLINE, 



RECOMMENDING A BOV. 



I HOLD it, Sir, my bounden duty. 
To warn you how that Master Tootie, 

Alias Laird M'Gaun, 
Was here to lure the lad away 
'Bout whom ye spak the tither day. 
An' wad hae don't aff han' : 
But lest he learn the callan tricks. 
As faith I muckle doubt him, 
Like scrapin' out auld Crummie's nicks, 
An' tell in' lies about them ; 
As lieve then I'd have then, 

Your clerkship he should sair, 
If sae be, ye may be 
Not fitted otherwhere. 

/Mlho' I say't, he's gleg enough, 

An' 'bout a house that's nule an' rough. 

The boy might loarn to swear; 
But then wi* you, he'll he sae taught, 
An' get sic fair example straught, 

1 hae na onie fear. 
Ye'll catcchi/c him every quirk. 



Mosgaville, May 3, 1786. 

An' shore him weel wi' hell ; 
An' jiar him follow to the kirk- 



-Ay when ye gang yoursel. 
If ye then, maun be then 

Frae hame this comin' Friday, 
Then please, Sir, to lea'e, Sir, 

The orders wi' your lady. 

My word of honour I ha'e gi'en, 
In' Paisley John's, that night at e'en. 
To meet the Warld's worm : 
To try to get the twa to gvee, 
An' name the airles an' the fee, 
In legal mode an' form : 
1 ken he weel a snick can draw. 

When simple bodies let him ; 
An' if a Devil be at a'. 

In faith he's sure to get him. 
To phrase you an' praise you, 

Ye ken your Laureat scorns : 
The pray'r still, you share still, 
Of grateful Minstrel Burns. 



TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL. 



133 



EPISTLE TO MR. M^ADAM, 

OF CRAICEN-CILLAN, IN ANSWBR TO AN OBCIGING LETTER HB SBNT IN THB 
COMMENCEMENT OF MY POSTtc CAREER. 



Sir, o'er a gill 1 gat your card, 
I trow it made me proud ; 

* See wha talcs notice o' the Bard ! * 

I lap and cry'd fu' loud. 

* Now deil-ma-care about their jaw, 

The senseless, gawky million ; 
I'll cock my nose aboon them a', 
I'm roos'd by Ciaigen-Gillan I ' 

*Twas noble, Sir ; 'twas like yoursel, 
To grant your high protection : 

A great man's smile, ye ken fu' weel, 
Is aye a blest infection. 

Tho', by his banes wha in a tub 
Match'd Macedonian Sandy I 



On my ain legs, thro* dirt and dub, 
I independent stand ay. — 

And when those legs to gude, wann kwl, 
Wi' welcome canna bear me ; 

A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail, 
And barley-scone shall cheer me. 

Heaven spare you lang to kiss thebreath 

O' monie flow'ry simmers ! 
And bless your bonie lasses baith, 

I'm tald they're loosome kimmers ! 

And God bless young Dunaskin's laird, 
The blossom of our gentry ! 

And may he wear an auld man's beard, 
A credit to his country. 



TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL, GLENRIDDEL. 

EXTEMPORE LINES ON RETURNING A NEWSPAPER. 

EUisland, Monday Evening. 

Your News and Review, Sir, I've read through and through, Sir, 

With little admiring or blaming ; 
The papei's are barren of home-news or foreign. 

No murders or rapes worth the naming. 

Our friends the Reviewers, those chippers and hewers 

Are judges of mortar and stone, Sir ; 
But of meet, or unmeet, in a fabrick complete, 

I'll boldly pronounce they are none, Sir. 

My goose-quill too rude is 'to tell all your goodness 

Bestow'd on your serwint, the Poet ; 
Would to God I had one like a beam of the sun. 

And then all the world. Sir, should know it I 



«34 



TO A LADY. 



VERSES 

INTENDED TO BE WRITTEN BELOW A NOBI.E EARL'S PICTURE. 



Whose is that noble, dauntless brow? 

And whose that eye of fire ? 
And whose that generous princely mien 

Even rooted foes admire? 

Stranger, to justly shew that brow. 

And mark that eye of fire, 
Would take His hajid, whose vernal 
tints 

His other works admire. 



Bright as a cloudless summer sun. 
With stately port he moves ; 

His guardian seraph eyes with awe 
The noble ward he loves. 



Among tTie illustrious Scottish sons 
That chief thou may'st discern ; 

Mark Scotia's fond returning eye. 
It dwells upon Glencairn. 



TO TERRAUGHTY, ON HIS BIRTHDAY. 



Health to the Maxwells' vct'ran Chief! 
Health, aye unsour'd by care or grief ; 
Inspir'd, I turn'd Fate's sibyl leaf 

This natal morn, 
I see thy life is stuff o' prief, 

Scarce quite half worn. 

This day thou metes threescore eleven. 
And I can tell that bounteous Heaven 
The second-sight, ye ken, is given 

To ilka Poet) 
On thee a tack o' seven times seven 
Will yet bestow it. 

If envious buckies view wi sorrow 
Thy lengthen'd days on this blest morrow, 
May desolation's lang- teeth 'd harrow, 



Nine miles an hour, 
Rake them, like Sodom and Gomorrah, 
In brunstane stoure — 

But for thy friends, and they are monie, 
Baith honest men and lassies bonie. 
May couthie fortune, kind and cannie. 

In social glee, 
Wi' mornings blithe and e'enings funny 

Bless them and thee ! 

Fareweel, auld birkie ! Lord be near ye. 
And then the Deil he dauma steer ye : 
Your friends aye love, your faes aye 
fear ye ; 

For me, shame fa' me, 
If neist my heart I dinna wear ye 

While Burns they ca' me. 



TO A LADY. 



wrrH A PRESENT OF A PAIR OF DRINKING GLASSES. 



Fair Empress of the Poet's soul. 

And Queen of Poetesses ; 
Clarinda, take this little boon. 

This humble pair of glasses. 

And fill them high with generous juice, 
As generous as your mind ; 



And pledge me in the generous toast— 
' The whole of human kind ! ' 

* To those who love us ! ' — second fill ; 

But not to those whom we love ; 
Lest we love those who love not us .' 

A third — ' to thee and me, Love ! * 



SKETCH. 135 

THE VOWELS. 

A TALE, 

'TWAS where the birch and sounding thong are ply'd, 

The noisy domicile of pedant pride ; 

Where ignorance her darkening vapour throws, 

And cruelty directs the thickening blows \ 

Upon a time, Sir Abece the great, 

In all his pedagogic powers elate, 

His awful chair of state resolves to mount, 

And call the trembling Vowels to account. 

First enter'd A, a grave, broad, solemn wight,. 
But ah ! deform' d, dishonest to the sight ! 
His twisted head look'd backward on his way. 
And flagrant from the scourge, he grunted, di! 

Reluctant, E stalk'd in ; with piteous race 
The jostling tears ran down his honest face ! 
That name, that well-worn name, and all his own. 
Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne ! 
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound 
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound ; 
And next, the title following close behind, 
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assign'd. 

The cobweb'd gothic dome resounded, Y ! 
In sullen vengeance, I, disdain'd reply : 
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round, 
And knock'd the groaning vowel to the ground ! 

In rueful apprehension enter'd O, 
The wailing minstrel of despairing woe ; 
Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert. 
Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art : 
So grim, deform'd, with horrors entering U, 
His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew ! 

As trembling U stood staring all aghast. 
The pedant in his left han^ clutch'd him fast. 
In helpless infants' tears he dipp'd his right, 
Baptiz'd him en, and kick'd him from his sight. t 



SKETCH. 

A LITTLE, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight, 
And still his precious self his dear delight ; 
Who loves his own smart shadow in the street? 
Belter than e'er the fairest she he meets : 
A man of fashion too, he made his tour, 
Learn'd vive la bagatelle, et vive I'amour ; 
So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve, 
Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love. 



136 PROLOGUE. 



Much specious lore, but little understood ; 
Veneering oft outshines the solid wood ; 
His solid sense — by inches you must tell, 
But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell ; 
His meddling vanity, a busy fiend, 
Still making work his selfish craft must mend. 



PROLOGUE 

rOR Mfc Sutherland's benefit-night, Dumfries. [1790.J 

What needs this din about the town o' Lon'on, 

How this new play an' that new sang is comin' ? 

Why is outlandish stuff sae meikle courted ? 

Does nonsense mend like whisky, when imported ? 

Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame, 

Will try to gie us sangs and plays at hame,? 

For comedy abroad he need na toil, 

A fool and knave are plants of every soil ; 

Nor need he hunt as far as Rome and Greece 

To gather matter for a serious piece ; 

There's themes enow in Caledonian story, 

Would show the tragic muse in a' her glory. 

Is there no daring Bard will rise, and tell 
How glorious Wallace stood, how hapless fell ? 
Where are the Muses fled that could produce 
A drama worthy o' the name o' Bruce ; 
How here, even here, he first unsheath'd the sword 
'Gainst mighty England and her guilty lord ; 
And after monie a bloody, deathles^s doing, 
Wrench'd his dear country from the jaws of ruin? 
O for a Shakespeare or an Otway scene, 
To draw the lovely, hapless Scottish Queen ! 
Vain all th' omnipotence of female charms 
'Gainst headlong, ruthless, mad Rebellion's armis. 
She fell, but fell with spirit ti-uly Roman, 
To glut the vengeance of a rival woman ; 
A woman, tho' the phrase may seem uncivil. 
As able and as cruel as the devil ! 
One Douglas lives in Home's immortal page, 
But Douglases were heroes every age : 
And tho' your fathers, prodigal of life, 
A Douglas follow'd to the martial strife, 
Perhaps, if bowls i*ow right, and Right succeeds. 
Ye yet may follow where a Douglas leads ! 

As ye hae generous done, if a' the land 
Would tak the Muses' servants by the hand ; 
Not only hear, but patronize, befriend them, 
And where ye justly can commend, commend them ; 
And aiblins when they winna stand the test. 
Wink hiard and say, the folks hae done their best I 



ELEGY ON THE YEAR 1788. 



137 



Would a* the land do this, then I'll be caution 
Ye'U soon hae poets o' the Scottish nation, 
Will gar Fame blaw until her trumpet crack. 
And warsle time an' lay him. on his back 1 

For us and for our stage should onie spier, 
* Whase aught thae chiels maks a' this bustle here ? 
My best leg foremost, I'll set up my brow. 
We hae the honour to belong to you ! 
We're your ain bairns, e'en guide us as ye like, 
But like good mithers, shore before ye strike — 
And gt'atefu' still I hope ye'Il ever find us, 
For a' the patronage and meikle kindness 
We've got frae a' professions, sets and ranks : 
God help us ! we're but poor— ye'se get but thanks. 



ELEGY ON THE YEAR 1788. 

SKETCH 



For Lords or Kings I dinna mourn. 
E'en let them die— for that they're born : 
But oh ! prodigious to reflec' ! 
A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck ! 
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma' space 
What dire events hae taken place \ 
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us ! 
In what a pickle thou hast left us ! 

The Spanish empire's tint a head, 
And my auld teethless Bawtie 's dead ! 
The tulzie's sair 'tween Pitt an' Fox, 
An' our gudewife's wee birdy cocks ; 
The tane is game, a bludie devil, 
But to the hen-bir<3s unco civil ; 
The tither's something dour 6' treadin. 
But better stuff ne'er claw'd a midden. 

Ye ministers^ come mount the poupit. 
An' cry till ye be haerse an' roupet, 
For Eighty-eight he wish'd you weel. 
And gied you a' baith gear an* meal ; 



E'en monie a plack, and monie a peck, 
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck. 

Ye bonie lasses, dight your een, 
For some o' you hae tint a frien' ; 
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta'en 
What ye'll ne'er hae to gie again. 

Observe the very nowt an' sheep, 
How dowf and daviely they creep ; 
Nay, even the yirth itsel does cry. 
For E'mbrugh wells are grutten dry. 

O Eighty-nine, thou's but a bairn, 
An' no owre auld, I hope, to learn ! 
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care. 
Thou now has got thy daddie's chair, 
Nae hand-cuff'd, mizzl'd, hap-shackl'd 

Regent, 
But, like himsel, a full free agent. 
Be sure ye follow outthe plan 
Nae waur than he did, honest man : 
As muckle better as you can. 
January i, 1789. 



VERSES WRITTEN UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF FERGUSSON 

THE POET, 

IM A COPY OF THAT AUTHOR'S WORKS 
PRESENTED TO A YOUNG LADY IN EDINBURGH, MARCH 19TH, I787. 

Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas'd. 
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure I 
O thou, my elder brother in misfortune. 
By far my elder brother in the Muses, 
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate ! 
Why is the Bard uupitied by the world. 
Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures ? 



138 



DELIA. 



LAMENT {see Note), 

WRITTEN AT A TIME WHEli THE POET WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE SCOTLAND. 

O'er the mist-shrouded diffs of the lone mountain straying, 
Where the wild winds of winter incessantly rave, 

What woes wring my heart while intently surveying 
The storm's gloomy path on the breast of the wave. 

Ye foam-crested billows, allow me to wail. 

Ere ye toss me afar from my lov'd native shore ; 

Where the flower which bloom' d sweetest in Coila's green vale. 
The pride of my bosom, my Mary 's no more. 

No more by the banks of the streamlet we'll wander. 
And smile at the moon's rimpled face in the wave ; 

No more shall my arms cling with fondness around her. 
For the dew-drops of morning fall cold on her grave. 

No more shall the soft thrill of love warm my breast, 

I haste with the storm to a far distant shore; 
Where unknown, unlamented, my ashes shall rest^ 

And joy shall revisit my bosom no more. 



DELIA. 

AN ODE. 



Fair the face of orient day. 
Fair the tints of op'ning rose ; 
But fairer still my Delia dawns, 
More lovely far her beauty blows. 

Sweet the lark's wild-warbled lay, 
Sweet the tinkling rill to hear ; 
But, Delia, more delightful still 
Steal thine accents on mine ear. 



The flower-enamour'd busy bee 
The rosy banquet loves to sip ; 
Sweet the streamlet's limpid lapse 
To the sun-brown'd Arab's lip ; 

But, Delia, on thy balmy lips 
Let me, no vagrant insect, rove ! 
O let me steal one liquid kiss ! 
For oh ! my soul is parch'd with love ! 



ON THE DEATH OF SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR. 

The lamp of day, with ill -presaging glare, 
Dim, cloudy, sunk beneath the western wave ; 

Th' inconstant blast howl'd thro' the dark'ning air, 
And hollow whistl'd in the rocky cave. 

Lone as I wander'd by each cliff and dell. 
Once the lov'd haunts of Scotia's royal train ; 

Or mus'd where limpid streams, once hallow 'd well. 
Or mould'ring ruins mark the sacred fane. 



SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR. 139 

Th' increasing blast roar'd round the beetling rocks, 

The clouds swift -wing'd flew o'er the starry sky, 
The groaning trees -untimely shed, their locks. 

And shooting meteors caught the startled eye. 

The paly moon rose in the livid east, 
_ And 'mong the cliffs disclos'd a stately Form, 
In weeds of woe that frantic beat her breast. 
And mix'd her wailings with the raving storm. 

Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow, 

'Twas Caledonia's trophied shield I view'd : 
Her form majestic droop'd in pensive woe, 

The lightning of her eye in tears imbued. 

Revers'd that spear, redoubtable in war, 

Reclin'd that banner, erst in fields unfurl'd. 
That like a deathful meteor gleam'd afar, 

And brav'd the mighty monarchs of the world.-— 

' My patriot son fills an untimely grave ! * 

With accents wild and lifted arms she cried ; 
' Low lies the hand that oft was stretch'd to save. 

Low lies the heart that swell'd with honest pride ! 

* A weeping country joins a widow's tear. 

The helpless poor mix with the orphan's cry ; 
The drooping arts surround their patron's bier. 
And grateful science heaves the heartfelt sigh. — 

* I saw my sons resume their ancient fire ; 

I saw fair Freedom's blossoms richly blow ; 
But, ah ! how hope is born but to expire ! 
Relentless fate has laid their guardian low. — 

* My patriot falls, but shall he lie unsung, 

While empty greatness saves a worthless name ? 
No ; every MUse shall join her tuneful tongue. 
And future ages hear his growing fame. 

* And I will join a mother's tender cares, 

Thro' future times to make his virtues last, 
That distant years may boast of other Blairs,' — 
She said, and vanish'd with the sweeping blast. 



140 



THE POET'S WELCOME. 



TO MISS FERRIER, 

ENCLOSING THE ELEGY ON SIR J. H. BLAIR. 



Nae heathen name shall I prefix 

Frae Pindus or Parnassus ; 
Auld Reekie dings them a' to sticks, 

For rhyme-inspiring lasses. 

Jove's tunefu' dochters three times three 
Made Homer deep their debtor ; 

But, gi'en the body half an ee, 
Nine Ferriers wad done better ! 

Last day my mind was in a bog, 
Down George's Street 1 stoited ; 



A creeping cauld prosaic fog 
My very senses doited. 

Do what I dought to set her free, 

My saul lay in the mire ; 
Ye turned a neuk — I saw your ee — 

She took the wing like fire ! 

The moumfu' sang I here enclose, 

In gi-atitude I send you ; 
And wish and pray in rhyme sincere, 

A' gude things may attend you ! 



WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF 

OF A COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION [OF HIS POEMS], WHICH I PRESENTED 
TO AN OLD SWEETHEART, THEN MARRIED. 

Once fondly lov'd, and still remember'd dear. 
Sweet early object of my youthful vows, 

Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere ; 
Friendship ! 'tis all cold duty now allows. 

And when you read the simple artless rhymes. 
One friendly sigh for him, he asks no more, 

"Who distant bums in flaming torrid climes, 
Or haply lies beneath th' Atlantic, roar. 



THE POETS WELCOME TO HIS ILLEGITIMATE CHILD. 



Thou's welcome, wean ! mishanter fa* 

me, 
If ought of thee, or of thy mammy, 
Shall ever dan ton me, or awe me. 

My sweet wee lady, 
Or if I blush when thou shalt ca' me 

Tit-ta or daddy. 

Wee image of my bonie Betty, 
I fatherly will kiss and daut thee, 
As dear an' near my heart I set thee 

Wi' as gude will, 
As a' the priests had seen me get thee 

That's out o' hell. 



What tho' they ca* me fornicator. 
An' tease my name in k intra clatter : 
The mair they talk I'm kent the better. 

E'en let them clash ; 
An auld wife's tongue's a feckless matter 

To gie ane fash. 



Sweet fruit o' monie a merry dint, , 

My funny toil is now a' tint. 

Sin' thou came to the warl asklent, 

Which fools may scoff at ; 
In my last plack thy part's be in't — 

The better haflF o't 



LETTER TO JAMES TENNANT. 



W 



An' if thou be what I wad hae thee, 
An' tak the coiuisel I shall gie thee, 
A lovin' father I'll be to thee, 

If thou be spared ; 
Thro' a' thy childish years I'll ee thee, 

An' think't weel war'd. 



Gude grant that thou may aye inherit 
Thy mither's person, grace, an' merit, 
An' thy poor worthless daddy's spirit, 

Without his failins, 
'Twill please me mair to hear an' see't, 

Than stockit mailins. 



LETTER TO JOHN GOUDIE, KILMARNOCK, 

ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS ESSAYS. 



O GOUTDIE ! terror of the Whigs, 
Dread o' black coats and rev'rend wigs, 
Sour Bigotry, on her last legs, 

Girnin' looks back, 
Wishin' the ten Egyptian plagues 

Wad seize you quick. 

Poor gapin"gIowrin' Superstition, 
Waes me ! she's in a sad condition ; 
Fy, bring Black -Jock, her state physician. 

To see her water ; 
Alas ! there's ground o' great suspicion 

She'll ne'er get better. 

Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple, 
But now she's got an unco' ripple ; 
Haste, gie her name up i' the chapel. 



Nigh unto death ; 
See how she fetches at the thrapple, 
An'^ gasps for breath. 

Enthusiasm's past redemption, 

Gaen in a galloping consumption. 

Not a' the quacks, with a' their gumption, 

Will ever mend her, 
Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption, 

Death soon will end her. 

'Tis you and Taylor are the chief, 
Wha are to blame for this mischief ; 
But gin the Lord's ain folks gat leave, 

A toom tar-barrel 
An' twa red peats wad send relief. 

An' end the quarrel. 



LETTER TO JAMES,. TENNANT, GLENCONNER. 



Auld comrade dear and brither sinner, 
How's a' the folk about Glenconner j 
How do you this blae eastlin wind, 
That's like to blaw a body blind ? 
For me, my faculties are frozen, 
My dearest member nearly dozen'd, 
I've sent you here by Johnie Simson, 
Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on ; 
Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling. 
An' Reid, to common sense appealing- 
Philosophers have fought an' wrangled. 
An' meikle Greek an' Latin mangled, 
Till wi' their logic-jargon tir'd. 
An' in the depth of Science mir'd. 
To common sense they now appeal, 
What wives an* wabsters see an' feel. 
Butj hark ye, friend, I charge you strictly, 
Peruse them, an' return them quickly, 



For now I'm groxvn sae cursed douse, 
I pray an' ponder butt the house. 
My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin', 
Pemsing Bunyan, Brown, an' Boston ; 
Till' by an' by, if I hand on, 
ni grunt a real Gospel-groan: 
Already I begin to try it, 
To cast my een up like a pyetj 
When by the gun she tumbles o'er, 
Flutt'ring an' gaspin in her gore : 
Sae shortly you shall see me bright, 
A burning an' a shining light. 

My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen, 
The ace an' wale of honest men : 
When bending down wi' auld grey hairs. 
Beneath the load of years and cares. 
May He who made him still support him, 
An' views beyond thegrave comfort him.. 



Ut 



^PIBTLE FROM ESOPVS TO MARIA. 



His worthy fam'Iy far and near, 
God bless them a' \vi' grace and gear ! 
My aiUd school - fellow, Preacher 
Willie, 
The manly tar, my mason Billie, 
An' Auchenbay, I wish him joy j 
If he's a parent, lass or boy, 
May he be dad, and Meg the mither 
Just five-and-forty years thegither ! 
An' no forgetting wabster Charlie, 
I'm tauld he offers very fairly. 
An' Lord, remember singing Sannock, 
Wi' hale-breeks, saxpence, an' a bannock. 
An' next, my auld acquaintance, Nancy, 
Since she is fitted to her fancy ; 
An' her kind stars hae airted till her 
A good chiel wi* a pickle siller. 
My kindest, best respects I sen* it. 
To cousin Kate an' sister Janet ; 



Tell them frae me, wi* chiels be cautious, 
For, faith, they'll aiblins fin' them 

fashious : 
To grant a heart is fairly civil. 
But to grant a maidenhead's the devil. — 
An' lastly, Jamie, for yoursel. 
May guardian angels tak a spell, 
An' steer you seven miles south o' hell : 
But first, before you see heav'n's glory, 
May ye get monie a merry story, 
Monie a laugh, and monie a drink, 
An' aye enough o' needfu' clink. 

Now fare ye weel, an' joy be wi' you, 
For my sake this I beg it o' you. 
Assist poor Simson a' ye can, 
Ye'll fin' him just an honest man ; 
Sae I conclude and quat my chanter, 
Your's, saint or sinner, 

Rob the Ranter. 



EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA. 

From those drear solitudes and frowzy cells, 

Where infamy with sad repentance dwells ; 

"Where turnkeys make,the jealous portal fast, 

And deal from iron hands the spare repast ; 

Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin. 

Blush at the curious stranger peeping in ; 

Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar. 

Resolve to drink, nay, half to whore, no more ; 

Where tiny thieves not destin'd yet to swing. 

Beat hemp for others, riper for the string : 

From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date. 

To tell Maria her Esopus' fate. 

* Alas ! I feel I am no actor here ! ' 

*Tis real hangmen, real scourges bear ! 

Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale 

Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale ; 

Will make thy hair, tho' erst from gipsy poll'd. 

By barber woven, and by barber sold. 

Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care. 

Like hoary bristles to erect and stare. 

The hero of the mimic scene, no more 

I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar ; 

Or haughty Chieftain, 'mid the din of arms, 

In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms ; 

While sans culottes stoop up the mountain high, 

And steal from me Maria's prying eye. 



EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA. 14^ 

Bless'd Highland bonnet ! Once my proudest dress. 

Now prouder still, Maria's temples press. 

I see her wave thy towering plumes afar,^ 

And call each coxcomb to the wordy war. 

I see her face the first of Ireland's sons, 

And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze ; 

The crafty colonel leaves the tartan'd lines. 

For other wars, where he a hero shines : 

The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred. 

Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head, 

Comes 'mid a string of coxcombs to display, 

That veni, vidi, vici, is his way ; 

The shrinking bard adown an alley skulks, 

And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks ; 

Though there, his heresies in church and state 

Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate : 

Still she undaunted reels and rattles on. 

And dares the public like a noontide sun. 

(What scandal call'd Maria's jaunt)'- stagger. 

The ricket i-eeling of a crooked swagger ? 

Whose spleen e'en worse than Burns's venom when 

He dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen, — 

And pours his vengeance in tlie burning line, 

Who christen'd thus Maria's lyre divine ; 

The idiot strum of vanity bemused, 

And even th' abuse of poesy abused ; 

Who call'd her verse a parish workhouse, made 

For motley, foundling fancies, stolen or stray'd ?) 

A workhouse ! ah, that sound awakes my woes, 

And pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose ! 

In durance vile here must I wake and weep. 

And all my frowzy couch in sorrow steep ; 

That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore, 

And vermin'd gipsies litter'd heretofore. 

Why, Lonsdale, thus thy wrath on vagrants pour. 

Must earth no rascal, save thyself, endure 'i 

Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell, 

And )nake a vast monopoly of hell ? 

Thou know'st, the virtues cannot hate thee worse, 

The A'ices also, must they club their curse ? 

Or must no tiny sin to others fall. 

Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all? 

Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares ; 
In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares. 
As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls, 
Who on my fair-one satire's vengeance hurls ? 
Who calls thee pert, affected, vain coquette, 
A wit in folly, and a fool in wit ? 
Who says that fool alone is not thy due. 
And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true ? 



144 



EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. 



Our force united on thy foes we'll turn, 

And dare the war with all of woman born : 

For who can write and speak as thou and I ? 

My periods that decyphering defy, 

And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply. 



ON A SUICIDE. 

Earth'd up here lies an imp o' hell, 
Planted by Satan's dibble — 

Poor silly wretch, he's damn'd himsel* 
To save the Lord the trouble. 



A FAREWELL. 

Farewell, dear Friend ! may guid luck hit you, 
And, mang her favourites admit you ! 
If e'er Detraction shore to smit you. 

May nane believe him ! 
And ony De'il that thinks to get you, 

Good Lord deceive him. 



THE FAREWELL. 



Farewell, old Scotia's bleak domains, 
Far dearer than the torrid plains 

Where rich ananas blow ! 
Farewell, a mother's blessing (Jear ! 
A brother's sigh ! a sister's tear ! 
My Jean's heart-rending throe ! 
Farewell, my Bess ! tho' thou'rt bereft 

Of my parental care ; 
A faithful brother I have left, 
My part in Irim thou'lt share ! 
Adieu too, to you too. 

My Smith, my bosom frien' ; 
When kindly you mind me, 
O then befriend my Jean 1 



When bursting anguish tears my heart, 
From thee, my Jeany, must I part ? 

Thou weeping answ'rest ' no 1 * 
Alas ! misfortune stares my face. 
And points to ruin and disgrace, 

I for thy sake must go ! 
Thee, Hamilton, and Aiken dear, 

A grateful, wann adieu ! 
I, with a much-indebted tear. 
Shall still remember you ! 
All-hail then, the gale then, 

Wafts me from thee, dear shore ! 
It rustles, and whistles, 
I'll never see thee more ! 



EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM^ ESQ. 

OF FINTRV: 

ON THE CLOSE OF THE DISPUTED ELECTION BETWEEN SIR JAMES JOHNSTONB AND CAPTAIN 
MILLER, FOR THE DUMFRIES DISTRICT OF BOROUGHS. 

FiNTRY, my stay in worldly strife. 
Friend o' my Muse, friend o' my life. 

Are ye as idle's I am ? 
Come then, wi' uncouth, Icintra fleg, 
O'er Pegasus I'll fling my leg. 

And ye shall see me try him. 



EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ES^. 145 



» 



I'll sing the zeal Drumlanng bears 
Who left the all-important cares 

Of princes and their darlings ; 
And, bent on winning borough towns, 
Came shaking hands wi' wabster loons, 

And kissing barefit carlms. 

Combustion thro' our boroughs rode 
Whistling his roaring pack abroad 

Of mad unmuzzled lions ; 
As Queensberry bufif and blue unfurl'dj 
And Westerha' and Hopeton hurl'd 

To every Whig defiance. 

But cautious Queensberry left the war, 
Th' unmanner d dust might soil his star ; 

Besides, he hated bleeding; 
But left behind him heroes bright, 
Heroes in Cassarean fight, 

Or Ciceronian pleading. 

O ! for a throat like huge Mons-Meg, 
To muster o'er each ardent Whig 

Beneath Drumlanrig's banner ! 
Heroes and heroines commix. 
All in the field of politics, 

To win immortal honour. 

M'Murdo and his lovely spouse, 

(Th' enamour'd laurels kiss her brows !) 

Led on the loves and graces : 
She won each gaping burgess' heart, 
While he, all-conquei-ing, play'd his part 

■ Among their wives and lasses, 

Craigdarroch led a light-arm'd corps, 
Tropes, metaphors and figures pour, 

Like Hecla streaming thunder : 
Glenriddel, skill'd in rusty coins, 
Blew up each Tory's dark designs. 

And bared the treason under. 

In either wing two champions fought. 
Redoubted Staig, who set at nought 

The wildest savage Tory : 
And Welsh, who ne'er yet flinch 'd his ground, 
High-waved his magnum-bonum round 

With Cyclopean fury. 

Miller brought up th' artillery ranks, 
The many-pounders of the Banks, 

Resistless desolation ! 



14<> EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ, 



While Maxwelton, that baron bold, 
'Mid Lawson's port entrench'd his hold, 

And threalen'd worse damnation. 

To these what Tory hosts oppos'd, 
With these what Tory warriors clos'd. 

Surpasses my descriving : 
Squadrons extended long and large, 
With furious speed rush to the charge, 

Like raging devils driving. 

What verse can sing, what prose narrate, 
The butcher d*eds of bloody fate 

Amid this mighty tulzie ! 
Grim Horror girn'd — pale Terror roar'd, 
As Murther at his thrapple shor'd, 

And Hell mix'd in the brulzie. 

As Highland crags by thunder cleft, 
When lightnings fire the stormy lift. 

Hurl dovvn with crashing rattle ; 
As flames among a hundred woods ; 
As headlong foam a hundred floods ; 

Such is the rage of battle ! 

The stubborn Tories dare to die ; 
As soon the rooted oaks would fly 

Before th' approaching fellers : 
The Whigs come on like Ocean's roar. 
When all his wintry billows pour 

Against the Buchan Bullers. 

Lo, from the shades of Death's deep night, 
Departed Whigs enjoy the fight, 

And think on former daring : 
The muffled murtherer of Charles 
The Magna Charta flag unfurls, 

All deadly gules its bearing. 

Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame. 

Bold Scrimgeour follov/s gallant Graham, 

Auld Covenanters shiver. 
(Forgive, forgive, much wrong'd Montrose ! 
Now death and hell engulf ihy foes, 

Thou liv'st on high for ever !) 

Still o'er the field the combat burns, 
The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns ; 

But Fate the word has spoken, 
For woman's wit and strength o' man, 
Alas ! can do but what they can ! 

The Tory ranks are broken. 



ON THE DUKE OF QUEENSBERRY. 



U7 



O that my een were flowing burns ! 
My voice a lioness that moK-rns 

Her darhng cubs' undoing ! 
That I might greet; that I might cry, 
While Tories fall, while Tories fly, 

And furious Whigs pursuing ! 

What Whig but melts for good Sir James ? 
Dear to his country by the names 

Friend, patron, benefactor ! 
Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save ! 
And Hopeton falls, the generous brave ! 

And Stewart, bold as Hector I 

Thou, Pitt, shalt rue this overthrow ; 
And Thurlow growl a curse of woe ; 

And Melville melt in wailing ! 
How Fox and Sheridan rejoice ! 
And Burke shall sing, * O Prince, arise, 

Thy power is all-prevailing \ ' 

For your poor friend, the Bard, afar 
He only hears and sees the war, 

A cool spectator purely ! 
So, when the storm the forest rends, 
The robin in the hedge descends. 

And sober chirps securely. 



STANZAS ON THE DUKE OF QUEENSBERRY. 



How shall I sing Drumlanrig's Grace, 
Discarded remnant of a race 

Once great in martial story ? 
His forbears' virtues all contrasted — 
The very name of Douglas blasted — 

His that hiverted glory. 



Hate, envy, oft the Douglas bore'; 
But he has superadded more. 

And sunk them in contempt : 
Follies and crimes have stain'd the name, 
But, Queensberry, thine the virgin claim, 

From aught that's good exempt. 



VERSES 



OM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WOODS NEAR DRUMLANRIG. 



As on the banks o* wandering Nith, 

Ae smiling simmer-morn I stray'd. 
And traced its bonie howes and haughs. 

Where Unties sang and lambkins 
play'd. 
I sat me down upon a craig. 

And drank my fill p' fancy's dream, 
When, from the eddying deep below, 

Uprose the genius of the stream. 



Dark, like the frowning rock, his 
brow, 

And troubled, like his wintry wave, 
And deep, as sughs the boding wind 

Amang his eaves, the sigh he gave — 
'And came ye here, my son,' he cried, 

* To wander in my birken shade ? 
To muse .'.ome favourite Scottish theme, 

Or sing some favourite Scottish maid. 



i4S 



EPISTLE TO MAJOR LOGAN, 



■ There was a time, it's nae lang syne, 

Ye might hae seen me in my pride, 
When a' my banks sae bravely saw 

Their woody pictures in my tide ; 
When hanging beech and spreading elm 

Shaded my stream sae clear and cool, 
And stately oaks their twisted arms 

Threw broad and dark across the pool ; 



When glinting, through the trees, 

appear'd 
The wee white cot.aboon the mill, 
And peacefu' rose its ingle reek, 
That slowly curled up the hill. 
But now the cot is bare and cauld, 

Its branchy shelter's lost and gane, 
And scarce a stinted birk is left 
To shiver in the blast its lane.* 



* Alas ! ' said I, ' what ruefu' chance 

Has twined ye o' your stately trees? 
Has laid your rocky bosom bare ? 

H as stripp' d the deed ing o' your braes ? 
Was it the bitter eastern blast. 

That scatters blight in early spring ? 
Or was't the wil'fne scorch'd their 
boughs, 

Or canker-worm wi' secret sting ? * 

'Nae eastlin blast,' the sprite replied ; 

* It blew na here sae fierce and fell, 
And on my dry and halesome ^anks 

Nae canker-worms get leave to dwell : 
Man ! cruel man !' the genius sigh'd — 

As through the cliffs he sank him 
down- — 
* The worm that gnaw'd my bonie trees. 

That reptile wears a ducal crown.' 



EPISTLE TO MAJOR LOGAN. 



Hail, thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie ! 
Though fortune's road be rough an' hilly 
To every fiddling, rhyming billie. 

We never heed. 
But take it like the unback'd filly, 

Proud o' her speed. 

When idly goavan whyles we saunter, 
Yirr, fancy barks, awa' we canter 
Uphill, down brae, till some mishanter, 

Some black bog-hole, 
Arrests us, then the scathe an' banter 

We're forced to thole. 

Hale be your heart ! Hale be your fiddle ! 
Lang may your el buck jink and diddle, 
To cheer you through the weary widdle 

O' this wild warl', 
Until you on a crummock driddle 

A gray-hair'd carl. 

Come wealthj come poortith, late or 

soon. 
Heaven send your heart-strings ay in 

tune, 
A.nd screw your temper-pins aboon 

A fifth or mair, 
The melancholious, lazie croon, 
O' cankrie care. 



May still your life from day to day 
Nae ' lente largo ' in the play. 
But 'allegretto forte' gay 

Harmonious flow 
A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspey — 

Encore ! Bravo ! 

A blessing on the cheery gang 
Wha dearly like a jig or sang, 
An' never think o' right ah' wrang 

By square an' rule. 
But as the clegs o' feeling stang 

Are wise or fool. 

My hand- waled curse keep hard in chase 
The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race, 
Wha count on poortith as disgi-ace — 

Their tuneless hearts ! 
May fire-side discords jar a base 

To a' their parts ! 

But come, your hand, my careless brither, 
r th' ither warl' if there's anither,^ 
An' that there is I've little swither 

About the matter ; 
We'cheek for chow shall jog thegither, 

I'se ne'er bid better. 



ON STIRLING. 



H9 



We've faults and failings — granted 

clearly, 
We're frail backsliding mortals merely, 
Eve's bonie squad priests wyte them 
sheerly 

For our grand fa' ; 
But still, but still, I like them dearly — 
God bless them a' ! 

Ochon for poor Castalian drinkers. 
When they fa' foul o' earthly jinkers, 
The witching cursed delicious blinkers 

Hae put me hyte. 
And gart me weet my waukrife winkers, 

Wi' girnin spite. 

But by yon moon ! — and that's high 

swearin' — 
An' every star within my hearin' ! 
An' by her een wha was a dear ane ! 

I'll ne'er forget ; 
I hope to gie the jads a clearin' 

In fair play yet. 

Mossgiel, -yith October, 1786. 



My loss I mourn, but not repent it, 
I'll seek my pursie whare I tint it, 
Ance to the Indies I were wonted. 

Some cantraip hour. 
By some sweet elf I'll yejt be dinted, 

Then, vive Patnotir! 

Faites nies baissemains respectueiise. 

To sentimental sister Susie, 

An' honest Lucky; no to roose you, 

Ye may be proud. 
That sic a couple Fate allows ye 

To grace your blood. 

Nae mair at present can I measure, 
An' trowth my rhymin' ware's nae 

treasure ; 
But when in Ayr, some half hour's 
leisure, 

Be't light, be't dark, 
.Sir Bard will do himself the pleasure 
To call at Park. 

Robert Purns. 



EPITAPH ON THE POET'S DAUGHTER. 

Here lies a rose, a budding rose, 

Blasted before its bloom ; 
Whose innocence did sweets disclose 

Beyond that flower's perfume. 
To those who for her loss are grieved, 

This consolation's given — 
She's from a world of woe relieved, 

And blooms a rose in heaven. 

EPITAPH ON GABRIEL RICHARDSON 

Here Brewer Gabriel's fire's extinct, 

And empty all his barrels : 
He's blest— if, as he brew'd, he drink. 

In upright honest morals. 



ON STIRLING. 

Here Stuarts once in glory reign'd, 
And laws for Scotland's weal ordain'd ; 
But now unroof'd their palace stands, 
Their sceptre 's sway'd by other hands ; 
The injured Stuart line is gone, 
A race outlandish fills their throne. 
An idiot race to honour lost, 
Who know llicm best, despise them most. 



^50 



ADDRESS OF BEELZEBUB. 



LINES 

OM BEING TOLD THAT THE ABOVE VERSES WfOULD AFFECT HIS PROSPECTS. 

Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name 

Shall no longer appear in the records of fame ; 

Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible, 

Says the more 'tis a truth, sir, the more 'tis a libel ? 

REPLY TO THE MINISTER OF GLADSMUIR. 

Like Esop's lion, Burns says, sore I feel 
All others scorn — but damn that ass's heel. 



EPISTLE TO HUGH PARKER. 



In this strange land, this uncouth clime, 
A land unknown to prose or rhyme ; 
Where words ne'er crost the Muse's 

heckles, 
Nor limpit in poetic shackles ; 
A land that prose did never view it. 
Except when drunk he stacher't through 

it; 
Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek, 
Hid in an atmosphere of reek, 
I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk, 
I hear it — for in vain I leuk. — 
The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel, 
Enhusked by a fog infernal : 
Here, for my wonted rliyming raptures, 
I sit and count my sins by chapters ; 
For life and spunk like ither Christians, 
I'm dwmdled down to mere existence, 
WF nae converse but Gallowa' bodies, 
Wi' nae kend face but Jenny Geddes. 
Jenny, my Pegasean pride ! 
Dowie she saunters down Nithside, 
And ay a westlin leuk she throws, 
While tears hap o'er her auld brown 

nose ! 



Was it for this, wi' canny care. 

Thou bure the Bard through many a 

shire ? 
At howes or hillocks never stumbled, 
And late or early never grumbled ?— , 
O, had I power like inclination, 
I'd heeze thee up a constellation. 
To canter with the Sagitarre, 
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar ; 
Or turn the pole like any arrow ; 
Or, when auld Phoebus bids good- 

morrov/, 
Dovni the zodiac urge the race, 
And cast dirt on his godship's face ; 
For I could lay my bread and kail 
He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail. — 
Wi' a' this care and a' this grief, 
And sma', sma' prospect of relief. 
And nought but peat reek i' my head. 
How can I write what ye can read ? — 
Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o' June, 
Ye'll find me in a better tune; 
But till we meet and weet our whistle, 
Tak this excuse for nae epistle. 

Robert Burns. 



ADDRESS OF BEELZEBUB 

to the president of the highland societv. 



Long life, my Lord, an' health be yours, 
Unskaith'd by hunger'd Highland boors ; 
Lord grant nae duddie desperate beggar, 
Wi' dirk, claymore, or rusty trigger, 
May twin auld Scotland o' a life 



She likes— as lambkins like a knife. 
Faith, you and Applecross were right 
To keep the Highland hounds in sight, 
I doubt na' ! they wad bid nae better 
Than let them ance out owre the water 



TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY. 



«5» 



Than up amang thae lakes and seas 
They'll mak' what rules and laws they 

pleafee ; 
Some daring Hancock, or a Franklin, 
May set their Highland bluid a ranklin' ; 
Some Washington again may head them, 
Or some Montgomery fearless lead them, 
Till God knows what may be effected 
When by such heads and hearts 

directed ; 
Poor dunghill sons of dirt and mire 
May to Patrician rights aspire ! 

Nae sage North, now, nor sager Sack- 
ville, 

To watch and premier o'er the pack vile, 

An' whare will ye get Howes and 
Clintons 

To bring them to a right repentance, 

To cowe the rebel generation, 

An' save the honour o' the nation ? 

They an' be d d ! what right hae 

they 

To meat or sleep, or light o' day ! 

Far less to riches, pow'r, or freedom, 

But what your lordship likes to gie them ? 

But hear, my lord ! Glengarry, hear ! 
Your hand 's owre light on them, I fear ; 
Your factors, grieves, trustees, and 

bailies, 
I canna' say but they do gaylies ; 
They lay aside a* tender mercies, 
yune X, Anno Mundi 579a 



An' tirl the hallions to the birses ; 
Yet while they're only poind't and 

herriet. 
They'll keep their stubborn Highland 

spirit ; 
But smash them ! crash them ^ to 

spails ! 
An' rot the dyvors i' the jails. ! 
The young dogs, swinge them to the 

labour ! 
Let wark an' hunger mak' them sober ! 
The hizzies, if they're aughtlins fawsont. 
Let them in Drury-lane be lesson'd J 
An' if the wives an' dirty brats 
E'en thigger at your doors an' yetts 
Flafifan wi' duds an' grey wi' beas', 
Frightin' awa your deucks an' geese, 
Get out a horsewhip or a jowler. 
The langest thong, the fiercest growler, 
An gar the tatter'd gypsies pack 
Wi' a' their bastarts on their back ! 
Go on, my lord ! I lang to meet you, 
An' in my house at hame to greet you ; 
Wi'. common lords 5'e shanna mingle. 
The benmost neiik beside the ingle. 
At my right han' assign'd your seat 
'Tween Herod's hip an' Polycrate, — 
Or if you on your station tarrow 
Between Almagro and Pizarro, 
A seat, I'm sure, ye're weel deservin't ; 
An' till ye come — Your humble servant. 



BSSLZESUB. 



TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY. 



Now Kennedy, if foot or horse 

E'er bring you in by Mauchline Corss, 

Lord man, there's lasses there wad force 

A hermit's fancy, 
And down the gate in faith they're worse 

And mair unchancy. 

But as I'm sayin* please step to Dow's 
And taste sic gear as Johnny brews. 
Till some bit callan brings me news 

That you are there. 
And if we dinna had a bouze 

I'se ne'er drink mair. 

It's no I like to sit an' swallow, 
Then like a swine to puke an' wallow. 
But gie me just a true good fallow 



Wi' right ingine. 
And spunkie ance to make us mellow, 
And then we'll shine. 

Now if ye're ane o' warl's folk, 
Wha rate the wearer by the cloak. 
An' sklent on poverty their joke, 

Wi' bitter sneer, 
Wi' you no friendship I will troke 

Nor cheap nor dear. 

But if, as I'm informed weel. 
Ye hate as ill's the vera deil. 
The flinty hearts that canna feel — 

Come, Sir, here's tae you ; 
Hae there's my haun' I wiss you weel. 

And gude be wi' you. 



'52 ON THE DEA TH OF ROBERT DUiVDAS, ESQ. 



ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT DUNDAS, ESQ. 

OF AKNISTON', LATE LOKD TKESIUEXT OF THE COURT OF SESSION. 

Lone on the blieaky hills the straying flocl<s 
Shun the fierce storms among the sheUering roclcs ; 
Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains, 
The gathering floods burst o'er the distant plains; 
Beneath the blasts the leafless forests groan ; 
The hollow caves return a sullen moan. 

Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves, 
Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves ! 
Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye. 
Sad to your sympathetic scenes I fly ; 
Where to the whistling blast and water's. roar, 
Pale Scotia's recent wound I may deplore. 

O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear ! 

A loss these evil days can ne'er repair ! 

Justice, the high vicegerent of her God, 

Her doubtful balance eyed, and sway'd her rod ; 

Hearing the tidings of .the fatal blow, 

She sunk, abandon'd to the wildest woe. 

Wi-ongs, injuries, from many a darksome den, 
Now gay in hope explore the paths of men ; 
See from his cavern grim Oppression rise, 
And throw on Poverty his cruel eyes ; 
Keen on the helpless victim see him fly. 
And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry : 

Mark rufhan Violence, distaiiTd with crimes, 

Rousing elate in these degenerate times ; , 

View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, 

As guileful Fraud points out the erring way : 

While subtile Litigation's pliant tongue 

The life blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong : 

Hark, injured Want recounts th' unlistcn'd tale, 

And much-wrong'd Mis'ry pours th' unpitied wail ! 

Ye dark waste hills, and brown unsightly plains. 
To you I sing my grief-inspired strains : 
Ye tempests, rage ! ye turbid torrents, roll ! 
Ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul. 
Life's social haunts and pleasures I resign, 
Be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine. 
To mourn the woes my country must endure. 
That wound degenerate ages cannot cure. 



ORTHODOX, ORTHODOX. 



153 



TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ. 



O, COULD I give thee India's wealth, 

As I this trifle send ! 
Because thy joy in both would be 

To share them with a friend. 



But golden sands did never grace 

The Heliconian st;ream ; 
Then take what gold could never buy- 

An honest Bard's esteem. 



ON THE DEATH OF A LAP-DOG, 



NAMED ECHO. 



In wood and wild, ye warbling throng, 

Your heavy loss deplore ; 
Now half-extinct your powers of song, 

Sweet Echo is no more. 



Ye jarring, screeching things around, 
Scream your discordant joys ; 

Now half your din of tuneless sound 
With Echo silent lies. 



LINES WRITTEN AT LOUDON MANSE. 



The night was still, and o'er the hill 
The moon shone on the castle v/a' ; 

The mavis sang, while dew-drops hang 
Around her, on the castle wa'. 



Sae merrily they danced the ring, 
Frae eenin' till the cock did craw ; 

And aye the o'erword o' the spring, 
V/as Irvine's bairns are bonie a'. 



ORTHODOX, ORTHODOX. 

A SECOND VERSION OF THE KIRK'S ALARM. 



Orthodox, orthodox, 
Who believe in John Knox, 
Let me sound an alarm to your con- 
science — 
There's an heretic "blast. 
Has been blawn i' the wast 
That what is not sense must be nonsense, 

Orthodox, 
That what is not sense must be nonsense. 

Doctor Mac, Doctor Mac, 

Ye should stretch on a rack, 
To strike eyil-doers wi' terror ; 

To join faith and sense, 

Upon any pretence, 
Was heretic damnable error. 

Doctor Mac, 
Was heretic damnable error. 

Town of Ayr, town of Ayr, 
It was rash, I declare, 
'IV) middle wi' mischief a-brewing; 



Provost John is still deaf 

To the church's relief, 
And orator Bob is its ruin. 

Town of Ayr, 
And orator Bob is its ruin. 

p'rymple mild, D'rymple mild, 

Tho' your heart's like a child, 
And your life like the new-driven snaw, 

Yet that winna save ye, 

Old Satan must have ye 
For preaching that three's ane an' twa, 

D'rymple mild, 
For preaching that three's ane an' twa. 

Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, 

Seize your spiritual guns, 
Ammunition ye nevei can need ; 

Your hearts are the stuff. 

Will be powder enough. 
And your skulls are a storehouse of lead, 

Calvin's sons, 
And your skulls are a storehouse of lead; 



^54 



ORTHODOX, ORTHODOX, 



Rumble John, Rumble John, 
Mount the steps with a groan, 

Cry the book is with heresy cramm'd ; 
Then lug out your ladle, 
Deal brimstone like aidle. 

And roar every note o' the damn'd. 
Rumble John, 

And roar every note o' the damn'd. 

Simper James, Simper James, 
Leave the fair Killie dames, 

There's a holier chase in your view ; 
I'll lay on your head, 
That the pack ye'U soon lead. 

For puppies like you there's but few. 
Simper James, 

For puppies like you there's but few. 

Singet Sawnie, Singet Sawnie, 

Are ye herding the penny, 
Unconscious what danger awaits ? 

With a jump, yell, and howl. 

Alarm every soel, 
For Hannibal 's just at your gates, 
Singet Sawnie, 
For Hannibal's just at your gates. 

Andrew Gowk, Andrew Gowk, 
Ye may slander the book. 
And the book nought the waur — let me 
tell you ; 
Tho' ye're rich and look big. 
Yet lay by hat and wig, 
And ye'U hae a calf 's-head o' sma' value, 

Andrew Gowk, 
And ye'U hae a calf 's-head o' sma' value. 

Poet Willie, Poet Willie, 

Gie the doctor a volley, 
VVi' your * liberty's chain ' and your wit; 

O'er Pegasus' side, 

Ye ne'er laid a stride. 
Ye only stood by when he sh — ' 

Poet Willie, 
Ye only stood by when he sh — . 

Bar Steenie,. Bar Steenie, 
What mean ye? what mean ye? 
If ye'U meddle nae mair wi' the matter. 



Ye may hae some pretence, man. 
To havins and sense, man, 

Wi' people that ken you nae better. 
Bar Steenie, 

Wi' people that ken you nae better. 

Jamie Goose, Jamie Goose, 
Ye hae made but toom roose, 
O* hunting the wicked lieutenant ; 
But the doctor's your mark, 
For the Lord's holy ark, 
He has cooper'd and ca'd a wrong pin 
in't, 

Jamie Goose, 
He has cooper'd and ca'd a wrong pin 
in'L 

Davie Bluster, Davie Bluster, 

For a saunt if ye muster, 
It's a sign they're no nice o' recruits, 

Yet to worth let's be just. 

Royal blood ye might boast, 
If the ass were the King o* the brutes, 

Davie Bluster, 
If the ass were the King o' the brutes. 

Muirland George, Muirland George, 

Whom the Lord made a scourge, 
To claw common sense for her sins ; 

If ill manners were wit. 

There's no mortal so fit 
To confound the poor doctor at ance, 
Muirland George, 
To confound the poor doctor at ance. 

Cessaockside, Cessnockside, 
Wi' your turkey-cock pride, 

O' manhood but sma' is your share ! 
Ye've the figure, it's true. 
Even our foes maun allow. 

And your friends daurna say ye hae mair, 
Cessnockside, 

And your friends daurna say ye hae mair. 

Daddie Auld, Daddie Auld, 

There's a tod i' the fauld, 
A tod meikle waur than the clerk ; 

Tho' ye downa do skaith, 

Ye'U be in at the death. 
And if ye canna bite ye can bark, 

,Daddie Auld, 
And if ye canna bite ye can bark. 



ELEGY ON PEG NICHOLSON. 



i5S 



Poet Bums, Poet Burns, 

Wi' your priest-skelping turns, 
Why desert ye your auld native shire ? 

Tho' your Muse is a gipsy, 

Yet were she even tipsy. 
She could ca' us nae waur than we are, 

Poet Burns, 
She could ca' us nae waur than we are. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Afton's Laird, Afton's Laird, 

When your pen can be spared, 
A copy o' this I bequeath. 

On the same sicker score 

1 mentioned before, 
To that trusty auld worthy Clackleith, 

Afton's Laird, 
To that trusty auld worthy Clackleith. 



THE SELKIRK GRACE. 

Some hae meat, and canna eat, 
And some wad eat that want it •, 

But we hae meat and we can cat. 
And sae the Lord be thanket. 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF PEG NICHOLSON. 



Peg Nicholson v/as a gude bay mare. 

As ever trode on aim ; 
But now she's floating down the Nith, 

An* past the mouth o' Cairn. 

Peg Nicholson was a gude bay mare, 
An* rode thro' thick an* thin ; 

But now she's floating down the Nith, 
An' wanting even the skin. 



Peg Nicholson was a gude bay mare. 

An' ance she bare a priest ; 
But now she's floating down the Nith, 

For Solway fish a least. 

Peg Nicholson was a gude bay mare. 
An' the priest he rode her sair ; 

An' meikle oppress'd an' bruised she was, 
As priest-rid cattle are. 



ON SEEING MISS FONTENELLE 



IN A FAVOURITE CHARACTER. 



Sweet naivete of feature, 
Simple, wild, enchanting elf, 

Not to thee, but thanks to Nature, 
Thou art acting but thyself. 



Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected. 
Spurning nature, torturing art ; 

Loves and graces all rejected, 
Then indeed thou'dst act a part. 



THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 

The Solemn League and Covenant 

Now brings a smile, now brings a tear ; 

But sacred Freedom, too, was theirs : 
If thou'rt a slave, indulge thy sneer. 



1 5 5 THE KIRK OF LA MING TON. 



ON MISS JESSY LEWARS. 



Talk not to me of savages 
From Afric's burning sun, 

No savage e'er could rend my heart, 
As, Jessy, thou hast done. 



But Jessy's lovely hand in mine, 

A mutual faith to plight. 
Not ev'n to view the heavenly choir, 

Would be so blest a sight. 



EPITAPH ON MISS JESSY LEWARS. 

Say, Sages, what's the charm on earth 

Can turn Death's dart aside ? 
It is not purity and worth, 

Else Jessy had not died. 



THE RECOVERY OF JESSY LEWARS. 

But rarely seen since Nature's birth. 

The natives of the sky, 
Yet still one Seraph's left on earth, 

For Jessy did not die. 



THE TOAST. 

Fill me with the rosy wine. 
Call a toast,, a toast divine j 
Give the Poet's darling flame, 
Lovely Jessy be the name ; 
Then thou mayest freely boast, 
Thou hast given a peerless toast. 



THE KIRK OF LAMINGTON. 

As cauld a wind as ever blew, 
A caulder kirk, and in't but few ; 
As cauld a minister's e'er spak, 
Yc'se a' be het ere I come back. 



WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF 

OK ONE OF MISS HANNAH MORE's WORKS, WHICH SHE HAD GIVEN HIM. 



Thou flattering mark of friendship kind. 
Still may thy pages call to mind 

The dear, the beauteous donor : 
Though sweetly female every part, 
Yet such a head, and more the heart, I The giver in the gift ; 

Docs both the sexes honour. I I'll bless her and wiss her 

She show'd her tastes refined and jnst I A Friend above the Lift, 



When she selected thee, 
Yet deviating own 1 must. 
For so approving me. 

But kind still, I'll mind still 



WILLIE CHALMERS. 



»57 



INSCRIPTION ON A GOBLET. 

WRITTEN IN THE HOUSE OF MR. SYME. 

There's death in the cup — sae beware ! 

Nay, more— there is danger in touching ; 
But wha can avoid the fellsnare ? 

The man and his wine's sae bewitching ! 

THE BOOK-WORMS. 

Through and through the inspired leaves, 
Ye maggots, make your windings ; 

But, oh ! respect his lordship's taste, 
And spare his golden bindings. 



ON ROBERT RIDDEL. 

To Riddel, much-lamented man, 

This ivied cot was dear ; 
Reader, dost value matchless worth ? 

This ivied cot revere. 



WILLIE CHALMERS. 



Wl' braw new branks in mickle pride. 

And eke a braw new brechan, 
My Pegasus I'm got astride. 

And up Parnassus pechin ; 
Whiles owre a bush wi' downward crush, 

The doited beastie stammers ; 
Then up he gets, and off he sets 

For sake o' Willie Chalmers. 

I doubt na, lass, that weel kenn'd name* 

May cost a pair o' blushes ; 
I am nae stranger to your fame 

Nor his warm urged wishes. 
Your bonte face sae mild and sweet. 

His honest heart enamours. 
And faith ye'll no be lost a whit, 

Tho' waired. on Willie Chalmers. 

Auld Truth hersel' might swear ye're fair. 

And Honour safely back her, 
And Modesty assume your air. 

And ne'er a ane mistak' her : 
And sic twa love-inspiring een 

Might fire even holy Palmers; 
Nae wonder then they've fatal been 

To honest Willie Chalmers. 



I doubt na fortune may you shore 

Some mim-mou'd pouther'd priestie. 
Fu' lifted up wi' Hebrew lore. 

And band upon his breastie : 
But oh ! what signifies to you, 

His lexicons and grammars ; 
The feeling heart 's the royal blue. 

And that's wi' Willie Chalmers. 

Some gapin' glowrin* countra laird, 

May warsle for your favour ; 
May claw his lug, and straik his beard. 

And host up some palaver. 
My bonie maid, before ye wed 

Sic clumsy-witted hammers, 
Seek Heaven for help, and barefit skelp 

Awa' wi' Willie Chalmers. 

Forgive the Bard ! my lond regard 

For ane that shares my bosom, 
Inspires my muse to gie 'm his dues. 

For de'il a hair I roose him. 
May powers aboon unite you soon. 

And fructify your amours, — 
And every ye^r come in mair dear 

To you and Willie Chalmers. 



158 REMORSE. 



TO JOHN TAYLOR. 



With Pegasus upon a day, 

Apollo weaiy tiying, 
Through frosty hills the journey lay, 

On foot the way was plying. 

Poor slip-shod giddy Pegasus 

Was but a sorry walker ; 
To Vulcan then Apollo goes. 

To get a frosty calker. 



Obliging Vulcan fell to work, 
Threw by his coat and bonnet, 

And did Sol's business in a crack ; 
Sol paid him with a sonnet. 

Ye Vulcan's sons of Wanlockhead, 

Pity my sad disaster ; 
My Pegasus is poorly shod — 

I '11 pay you like my master. 



LINES V^RITTEN ON A BANK-NOTE. 

Wae worth thy power, thou cursed leaf I 

Fell source o' a' my woe and grief ! 

For lack o' thee I've lost my lass ! 

For lack o' thee I scrimp my glass I 

I see the children of affliction 

Unaided, thro' thy curs'd restriction. 

I've seen the oppressor's cruel smile, 

Amid his hapless victim's spoil. 

For lack o' thee I leave this much-lov'd shore. 

Never, perhaps, to greet old Scotland more. 

R. B. Kyle. 

THE LOYAL NATIVES' VERSES. 

Ye sons of sedition, give ear to my song. 
Let Syme, Burns, and Maxwell pervade every throng, 
With Crackcn the attorney, and Mundell the quack, 
Send Wiilie the monger to' hell with a smack. 

These verses -were handed over the table to Bums at a convivial meeting, and he endorsed the 
subjoined reply : 

BURNS— EXTEMPORE. 

Ye true * Loyal Natives,' attend to my song, . 

In uproar and riot rejoice the night long ; 
, From envy and hatred your corps is exempt ; 

But where is your shield from the darts of contempt ? 

REMORSE. 

Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace, 

That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish, 

Beyond comparison the worst are those 

That to our folly or our guilt we owe. 

In every other circumstance, the mind 

Has this to say — ' It was no deed of mine ;* 



^N VAIN WOULD PRUDENCE: 159 

But when to all the evil of misfortune 
This' sting is added — ' Blame thy foolish self!' 
Or worser far, the pangs of keen Remorse; 
The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt — 
Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others ; 
The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us, 
Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin ! 
O burning hell ! in all thy store of torments, 
There's not a keener lash I 
Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart 
Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime, 
Can reason down its agonizing throbs ; 
And, after proper purpose of amendment, 
Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace ? 
O, happy ! happy ! enviable man I 
O glorious magnanimity of soul ! 

THE TOAD-EATER. 

What of earls with whom you have supt, 

And of dukes that you dined with yestreen ? 
Lord ! a louse, Sir, is still but a louse. 

Though it crawl on the curls of a Queen. 



TO 

Sir, 

Yours this moment I unseal. 
And faith I am gay and hearty ! 

To tell the truth an' shame the Deil 
I am as fu' as Bartie : 



Mossgietf — • 178& 

But foorsday. Sir, my promise leal 
Expect me o' your party, 

If on a beastie 1 can sped. 
Or hurl in a cartie. R, B. 



•IN VAIN WOULD PRUDENCE.' 

In vain would Prudence, with decorous sneer, 
Point out a cens'ring world, and bid me fear ; 
Above that world on wings of love I rise, 
I know its worst — and can that worst despise. 
* Wrong'd, injur'd, shunn'd ; unpitied, unredrest, 
The mock'd quotation of the scorner's jest.' 
Let Prudence' direst bodements on me fall, 
Clarinda, rich reward ! o'erpays them all 1 

THOUGH FICKLE FORTUNE.' 

Though fickle Fortune has deceiv'd me, 
She promis'd fair and perform'd but ill ; 

Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me^ 
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.— 



i6o TAM THE CHAPMAN. 



I'll act with pradence as far's I'm able, 
But if success I must never find, 

Then come misfortune, t bid thee welcome, 
I'll meet thee with an undaunted mind. — 



«I BURN, I BURN/ 

* I BURN, I burn, as when thro' ripen'd com 
By driving winds the crackling flames are borne/ 
Now maddening, wild, I curse that fatal night ; 
Now bless the hour which charm *d my guilty sight 
In vain the laws their feeble force oppose : 
Chain'd at his feet they groan, Love's vanquish'd foes 
In vain religion meets my sinking eye ; 
I dare not combat— but I turn and fly ; 
Conscience in vain upbraids th' unhallow'd fire j 
Love grasps his scorpions — stifled they expire ! 
Reason drops headlong from his sacred throne. 
Your dear idea reigns and reigns alone : 
Each thought intoxicated homage yields. 
And riots wanton in forbidden fields ! 

By all on high adoring mortals know ? 
By all the conscious villain fears below ! 
By your dear self '—the last great oath I swear ; 
Nor life nor soul were ever half so dear 1 



EPIGRAM ON A NOTED COXCOMB. 

Light lay the earth on Billy's breast, 

His chicken heart so tender ; 
But build a castle on his head, 

His skull will prop it under. 



TAM THE CHAPMANc 

As Tarn the Chapman on d day 

Wi* Death forgather'd by the way, 

Wee! pleas'd, he greets a wight sae famous, 

And Death was nae less pleased wi' Thomas, 

Wha cheerfully lays down the pack^ 

And there blaws up a hearty crack ; 

His social, friendly, honest heart, 

Sae tickled Death they could na part : 

Sae after viewing knives and garfers, 

Death takes him hame to gie him quarters. 



FRAGMENT. lir 



TO DR. MAXWELL, 

ON MISS JESSY STAIG'S RECOVERV. 

Maxwell, if merit here you crave, 

That merit I deny : 
Yoii save fair Jessy frorii the grave ! 

An Angel could not die. 

FRAGMENT. 



Now health forsakes that angel face, 
Nae mair my Dearie smiles ; 

Pale sickness withers ilka grace, 
And a' my hopes beguiles. 



The cruel powers reject the prayer 

I hourly mak' for thee ; 
Ye heavens, how great is my despair. 

How can I see him dee ! 



THERE'S NAETHIN LIKE THE HONEST NAPPY. 



There's naethin like the honest nappy! 
Whaur'll ye e'er see men sae happy, 
Or women sonsie, saft an* sappy, 

'Tween morn an' morn. 
As them wha like to taste the drappie 

In glass or horn. 



I've seen me daez't upon a time ; 
I scarce could wink or see a styme \ 
Just ae hauf mutchkin does me prime, 

Ought less is little, 
Then back I rattle on the rhyme 

As gleg's a whittle ! 



PROLOGUE, 

SPOKEN BY MR. WOODS, ON HIS OENEFIT-NICHT, MONDAY, APRIL l6, I787 

When by a generous public's kind acclaim, 
That dearest meed is granted — honest fame ; 
When here your favour is the actor's lot, 
Nor even the mah in private life forgot ; 
What breast so dead to heav'nly virtue's glow, 
But heaves impassion'd w*ith the grateful throe ? 
Poor is the task to please a barb'rous tlirong, 
It needs no Siddons' power in Southern's song ; 
But here an ancient nation, fam'd afar 
For genius, learning high, as great in war — 
Hail, Caledonia ! name for ever dear ! 
Before whose sons I'm honour'd to appear ! 
Where every science, every uobler art — 
That can inform the mind, or mend the heart. 
Is known ; as grateful nations oft have foun,cl. 
Far as the rude barbarian marks the bound. 
Philosophy, no idle, pedant dream, 
Here holds her search, by heaven-taught Reason's beam ; 
Here History paints with elegance and force. 
The tide of Empire's fluctuating course ; 

M 



I<12 



NATURE'S LAW. 



Here Douglas forms wild Shakespeare into plan, 
And Harley rouses all the god in man. 
When well-form'd taste and sparkling wit unite. 
With manly love, or female beauty bright, 
(Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace 
Can only charm us in the second place,) 
Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear, 
As on this night, I've met these judges here ! 
But still the hope Experience taught to live. 
Equal to judge — you're candid to forgive. 
No hundred-headed Riot here we meet, 
With decency and law beneath his feet, 
Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom's name ; 
Like Caledonians, you applaud or blame. 

O Thou, dread Power ! whose empire-giving hand 
Has oft been stretch'd to shield the honour'd land. 
Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire r 
May every son be worthy of his sire ; 
Firm may she rise w'ith generous disdain 
At Tyranny's, or direr Pleasure's chain; 
Still self-dependent in her native shore, 
Bold may she brave grim Danger's loudest roar, 
Till Fate the curtain drop on worlds to be no more. 



NATURE'S LAW. 



A POEM HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO G. H. ESQ. 



Great nature s/oke, observant man obeyed. 

Pope. 



Let other heroes boast their scars, 

The marks of sturt and strife : 
And other Poets sing of wars, 

The plagues of human life ; 
Shame fa' the fun ; wi' sword and gim 

To slap mankind like lumber J 
I sing his tiarpe and nobler fame, 

Wha multiplies our number. 

Great Nature spoke, with air benign, 

* Go on, ye human race ! 

' This lower world I you resign ; 

* Be fruitful and increase. 

' The liquid fire of strong desire 

* I've pour'd it in each bosom ; 

* Here, in this hand, does mankind stand, 

* And there, is Beauty's, bloss" 



The Hero of these artless strains, 

A lowly Bard was he, 
Who sung his rhymes in Coila's plains 

With meikle mirth an' glee ; 
Kind Nature's care had given his share, 

Large, of the flaming current ; 
And, all devout, he never sought 

To stenfi the sacred torrent. 

He felt the powerful, high behest, 

Thrill, vital, thro' and thro' ; 
And sought a correspondent breast. 

To give obedience due ; 
Propitious Powers screen'd the young 
flow'rs, 

From mildews of abortion ; 
And lo ! the Bard, a great reward» 

Has got a double portion ! 



Tragic fragmemt. ii% 


Auld, cantie Coil may count the day. 


Ye Powers of peace, and peaceful song, 


As annual it returns, 


Look down with gracious eyes ; 


The third of Libra's equal sway. 


And bless auld Coila, large and long, 


That gave another Burns, 


With multiplying joys. 


With future rhymes, an* other times, 


Long may she stand to prop the land, 


To emulate his sire ; 


The flow'r of ancient nations ; 


To sing auld Coil in nobler style 


And Burnses spring, her fame to sing. 


With more poetic fire. 


To endless generations ! 



THE CATS LIKE KITCHEN. 



The cats like kitchen ; 

The dogs like broo ; 
The lasses like the lads weel, 

And th' auld wives too. 



CHORUS. 
And we're a' noddin, 

Nid, nid, noddin, 
We're a' noddin fou at e'en. 



TRAGIC FRAGMENT. 

All d«vil as I am, a damned wretch, 

A harden'd, stubborn, unrepenting villain. 

Still my heart melts at human wretchedness j 

And with sincere tho' unavailing sighs 

I view the helpless children of distress. 

With tears of indignation I behold th' oppressor 

Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction, 

Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime. 

Even you, ye helpless crew, I pity you ; 

Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity; 

Ye poor, despis'd, abandon'd vagabonds. 

Whom Vice, as usual, has turn'd o'er to Rum. 

but for kind, tho' ill-requited friends, 

1 had been driven forth like you forlorn, 

The most detested, worthless wretch among you ! 

O injur'd God ! Thy goodness has endow'd me 

With talents passing most of my compeers. 

Which I in just proportion have abus'd. 

As far surpassing other common villains, 

As Thou in natural parts hadst given me more. 



EXTEMPORE. 

ON PASSING A lady's CARRIAGE. [MRS. MARIA RIDDEt'S-l 

If you rattle along like your mistress's tongue, 

Your speed will out-rival the dart : 
But, a fly for your load, you'll break down on the road, 

If your stuff be as rotten's her heart. 

M 2 



164 



FRAGMENTS. 



FRAGMENTS. 



Ye hae lien a' wrang, lassie, 

Ye'velien a' wrang ; 
Ye've lien in an unco bed, 

And \vi' a fremit man. 
O ance ye danced upon the knowcs, 

And ance ye lightly sang — 
But in herrying o' a bee byke,. 

I'm rad ye've got a stang. 



O GIE my love brose, brose, 

Gie my love brose and butter; 
For nane in Carrick or Kyle 

Can please a lassie better. 
The lav'rock lo'es the grass, 

The muirhen lo'es the heather ; 
But gie me a braw moonlight. 

And me and my love together. 



Lass, when your mLtheif is fraeliame, 

Might I but be sae bauld 
As come to your bower-window, 

And creep in frae the cauld. 
As come to your bower-window. 

And when it's cauld and wat. 
Warm me in thy sweet bosom ; 

Fair lass, wilt thou do that ? 

Young man, gif ye should be sae kind, 

When our gudewife's frae hame, 
As come to my bower-window, 

Whare I am laid my lane. 
And warm thee in my bosom — 

But I will tell thee what, 
The way to me lies througli the kirk ; 

Young man. do ye hear that ? 



I MET a lass, a bonie lass, 

Coming o'er the braes o' Couper, 
Bare her leg and bright her een, 

And handsome ilka bit about her. 
Weel I wat she was a quean 

Wad made a body's mouth to water; 
Our Mess John, wi' his lyart i^'ow, 

H is haly lips wad lickit at her. 



O WAT ye what my minnie did, 
My minnie did, my minnie did, 

wat ye what my minnie did, 
On Tysday 'teen to me, jo ? 

She laid me in a saft bed, 

A saft bed, a saft bed. 
She laid me in a saft bed, 

And bade gudeen to me, jo. 

An' wat ye what the parson did. 

The parson did, the parson did, 
An' wat ye what the parson did, 

A' for a penny fee, jo ? 
He loosed on me a lang man, 

A mickle man, a Strang man, 
He loosed on me a lang man, 

That might hae worried me, jo. 

An' I was but a young thing, 
A young thing, a young thing, 

An' I was but a young thing, 
Wi' nane to pity me, jo. 

1 wat the kirk was in the vv^te, 
In the wyte, in the wyte. 

To pit a young thing in a fright. 
An' loose a man on me, jo. 



CAN ye labour lea, young man, 
An' can ye labour lea j 

Gae back the gate ye cam' again, 
Ye'se never scorn me. 

1 feed a man at Martinmas, 
Wi' arle pennies three ; 

An' a' the faut I fan' wi' him. 
He couldna labour lea. 

The stibble rig is easy plough'd, 

The fallow land is free ; 
But wha wad kpep the handless coof, 

That couldna labour lea ? 



EPITAPH ON WILLIAM NICOL, 



»6S 



Jenny M 'Craw, she has ta'en to the heather. 
Say, was it the covenant carried her thither ; 
Jenny M'Craw to the mountains is gane, 
Their leagues and their covenants a' she has ta'en ; 
INIy head and my heart, now quo' she, are at rest. 
And as for the lave, let the Deil do his best. 



The last braw bridal that 1 was at, 

'Twas on a Hallowmass day, 
And there was routh o' drink and fun, 

And mickle mirth and play. 
The bells they rang, and the carlins sang, 

And the dames danced in the ha' ; 
The bride went to bed wi' the . silly 
bridegroom, 

In the midst o' her kimmers a'. 



O Thou, in whom we live and move. 

Who mad'st the sea and shore ; 
Thy goodness constantly we prove. 

And grateful would adore. 
And if it please thee, Pow'r above. 

Still grant us with such store ; 
The friend we trust, the fair we love, 

And we desire no more. 



Lord, we thank an' thee adore, 
For temp'ral gifts we little merit ; 

At present we will ask no more. 
Let William Hyslop give the spirit. 



There came a piper out o' Fife, 
I watna what they ca'd him ; 

He play'd our cousin Kate a spring, 
When fient a body bade him. 

And ay the mair he hotch'd an' blew, 
The mair that she forbade him. 



The black -headed eagle. 

As keen as a beagle. 
He hunted o'er height and owre howe ; 

But fell in a trap 

On the braes o' Gemappe, 
E'en let him come out as he dowe. 



EPITAPH ON WILLIAM NICOL. 

Ye maggots feast on Nicol's brain, 
For few sic feasts ye've gotten ; 

And fix your claws in Nicol's heart. 
For de'il a bit o'ts rotten. 



ANSWER TO A POETICAL EPISTLE 



SENT THE AUTHOR BY A V'AILOR. 



What ails ye now, ye lousie bitch. 
To thresh my back at sic a pitch? 
Losh, man ! hae mercy wi' your natch. 

Your bodkin's bauld, 
I didna suffer ha'f sae much 

Frae Daddie Auld. 



What tho' at times when I grow crouse, 
I gi'e their wames a random pouse, 
Is that enough for you to souse 

Your servant sac ? 
Gae mind ypurscam, ye prick-thc-louse, 

An' jng-thc-flac, 



I66 



EXTEMPORE LINES. 



King David o' poetic brief. 

Wrought *mang the lasses such mischief 

As fill d his after life wi' grief 

An' bloody rants, 
An' yet he's rank'd amang the chief 

O' lang-syne saunls. 



And maybe, Tam, for a' my cants. 
My wicked rhymes, an' drucken rants, 
I'll gie auld cloven Clooty's haunts 

• An unco slip yet, 
An' snugly sit amang the saunts, 
At Davie's hip yet. 



But fegs, the Session says I maun 

Gae fa' upo' anither plan, 

Than garren lasses cowp the cran 

Clean heels owre body, 
And sairly thole their mither's ban 

Afore the howdy. 

This leads me on, to tell for sport. 
How I did wi' the Session sort — 
Auld Clinkum at the Inner port 

Cry'd three times, * Robin ! 
Come hither, lad, an' answer for't, 

Ye're blam'd for jobbin'.' 

Wi' pinch I put a Sunday's face on, 
An' snoov'd awa' before the Session — 
I made an open fair confession, 

I scorn'd to lie ; 
An' syne Mess John, beyond expression, 

Fell foul o' me. 



A furnicator-loun he call'd me, 

An' said my fau't frae bliss expell'd me ; 

I own'd the tale was true he tell'd me 

'But what the matter?' 
Quo' I, * I fear unless ye geld me, 

I'll ne'er be better.' 

* Geld you ! ' quo' he, < and whatfore no ? 
If that your right hand, leg or toe, 
Should ever prove your sp'ritual foe, 

You shou'd remember 
To cut if afif, an' whatfore no 

Your dearest member ? ' 

*Na, na,' quo' I, *I'm no for that. 
Gelding's nae better than 'tis ca't, 
I'd rather suffer for my faut, 

A hearty flewit, 
As sair owre hip as ye can draw 't, 

Tho' I should rue it. 

* Or gin ye like to end the bother. 
To please ys a', I've just ae ither, 
When next wi' yon lass I forgather, 

Whate'er betide it, 
I'll frankly gi'e her't a' thegither, 
An' let her guide it.' 

But, Sir, this pleas'd them warst ava. 
An' therefore, Tam, when that I saw, 
I said, *Gude night,' and cam awa, 

And left the Session; 
I saw they were resolved a' 

On my oppression. 



EXTEMPORE LINES, 



IN ANSWER TO A CARD FROM AN INTIMATE FRIEND OF BURNS, WISHING HIM 
TO SPEND AN HOUR AT A TAVERN. 



The King's most humble servant I, 
Can scarcely spare a minute ; 

But I'll be wi' ye by an' bye ; 
Or ebe the Dell's be in it. 



My bottle is my holy pool. 
That heals the wounds o' care an' dool, 
And pleasure is a wanton trout, 
An* ye drink it, ye'il find him out. 



THE HEN-PECK- D HUSBAND. 167 



LINES 

WRITTEN EXTEMPORE IN A, LADV's POCKET-BOOK. [MISS KENNEUV, 
SISTER-IN-LAW OF GAVIN HAMILTON.] 

Grant me, indulgent Heaven, that I may live 
To see the miscreants feel the pains they give ;' 
Deal Freedom's sacred treasures free as air, 
Till slave and despot be but things which were. 



THE HENPECK'D HUSBAND. 

Curs'd be the man, the poorest wretch in life, 
The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife I 
Who has no will but by her high permission ; 
Who has not sixpence but in her possession ; 
Who must to her his dear friend's secret tell ; 
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell. 
Were such the wife had fallen to my part, 
I'd break her spirit, or I'd break her heart : 
I'd charm her with the magic of a switch, 
I'd kiss her maids, and kick the perverse bitch. 



EPITAPH ON A HENPECK'D COUNTRY SQUIRE. 

As father Adam first was fool'd, 
A case that's still too common, 

Here lies a man a woman rul'd. 
The Devil rul'd the woman. 



EPIGRAM ON SAID OCCASION. 



O Death, hadst thou but spar'd his life 
Whom we, this day, lament ! 

We freely wad exchang'd the wife, 
And a been weel content. 



Ev'n as he is, cauld in his graff. 
The swap we yet will do't ; 

Take thou the carlin's carcase afl^ 
Thou'se get the saul o' boot. 



ANOTHER. 

One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell, 
When depriv'd of her husband she loved so well. 
In respect for the love and affection he'd show'd her, 
She reduc'd him to dust and she drank up the powder. 

But Queen Netherplace, of a diff'rent complexion. 
When call'd on to order the fun'ral direction, 
Would have eat her dead lord, on a slender pretence, 
Not to shew her respect, but —to save the expense. 



i68 



A TOAST. 



VERSES 



WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE INN AT CARRON. 



We carne na here to view your warks 

In hopes to be mair wise, 
But only, lest we gang to hell, 

It may be nae surprise. 



But when we tirl'd at your door, 
Your porter dought na hear us ; 

Sae may, shou'd we to hell's yetts come. 
Your billy Satan sair us \ 



LINES 

ON BEING ASKED WHY GOD HAD MADE MISS DAVIES SO LITTLE 
AND MRS. * * * so LARGE. 

U^rii/gn on a Pane of Class in the Tnn at Moffat. 

Ask why God made the gem so small, 

An' why so huge the granite ? 
Because God meant mankind should set 

That higher value on it. 



EPIGRAM. 

WRITTEN AT INVEKAKY. 



Whoe'er he be that sojourns here, 

I pity much his case, 
Unless he come to wait upon 

The Lord their God, his Grace. 



There's naething here but Highland 
pride, 

And Highland scab and hunger; 
If Providence has sent me here, 

'Twas surely in his anger. 



A TOAST. 

GIVEN AT A MEETING OF THE DUMFRIES-SHIRE VOLUNTEERS, HELD TO COMMEMORATB 
THE ANNIVERSARY OF RODNEY^S VICTORY, APRIL I2TH, 1782. 

Instead of a Song, boys, I'll give you a Toast, — 
Here's the memoiy of those on the twelfth that we lost : 
That we lost, did I say ? nay, by heav'n, that we found. 
For their fame it shall last while the world goes round. 
The next in succession, I'll give you the King, 
Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing ! 
And here's the grand fabric, our free Constitution, 
As built on the base ofthe great Revolution ; 
And longer with Polilics, not to be crainm'd, 
Be Anarchy curs'd, and be Tyranny damn'd ; 
And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal. 
May his son be a hangman, and he his first trial ! 



TO y. RANKINE. 169 



LINES 

SAID TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY BURNS, WHILE ON HIS DEATH-BED, TO JOHN RANKINB, 
AYRSHIRE, AND FORWARDED TO HIIVT IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE POET'S DECEASE. 

He who of Rankine sang, lies stiff and dead ; 
And a green grassy hillock hides his head ; 
Alas ! alas ! a devilish change indeed ! 

VERSES ADDRESSED TO J, RANKINE, 

.ON. HIS WRITING TO THE POET, THAT A GIRL IN THAT PART OF THE COUNTRY- 
WAS WITH CHILD TO HIM. 



I AM a keeper of the law 

In some sma' points, altho' not a' ; 

Some people tell me gin I fa', 

■ Ae way or ither. 
The breaking of ae point, tho* sma*, 
Breaks a' thegither. 



I hae been in for't ance or twice, 
And winna say owre far for thrice, 
Yet never met with that surprise 

That broke my rest^ 
But now a rumour's like to rise, 

A whaup's i' the nest. 



ON SEEING THE BEAUTIFUL SEAT OF LORD GALLOWAY 

What dost thou in that mansion fair ? 

Flit, Galloway, and find 
Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave, 

The picture of thy mmd ! 

ON THE SAME. 

^ No Stewart art thou, Gailloway, 

The Stewarts all were brave ; 
Besides, the Stewarts were but fools, 
Not one of them a knave. 



ON THE SAME. 

Bright ran thy line, O Galloway, 
Thro' many a far-fam'd sire ! 

So ran the far-fam'd Roman way. 
So ended in a mire t 



TO THE, SAME, 

ON THE AUTHOR BEING THREATENED WITH HIS RESENTMENT 

Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway, 

In quiet let me live : 
I ask no kindness at thy hand. 

For thou hast none to give. 



170 



ON" A SCHOOLMASTER, 



VERSES TO J. RANKINE. 



Ae day, as Death, that grusome carl, 
Was driving to the tither warl' 
A mixtie-maxtie motley squad, 
And monie a guilt-bespotted lad ; 
Black gowns of each denomination. 
And thieves of every rank and station, 
From him that wears the star and garter. 
To him that wintles in a halter ; 
Asham'd himsel to see the wretches. 
He mutters, glowrin at the bit<:hes. 



* By God I'll not be seen behint them, 
Nor 'mang the sp'ritual core present 

them, 
"Without at least, ae honest man. 
To grace this damn'd infei-nal clan.* 
By Adamhill a glance he threw, 

* Lord God ! ' quoth he, * I have it now. 
There's just the man I want, i' faith,* 
And quickly stoppit Rankine's breath. 



EXTEMPORANEOUS EFFUSION, 

ON BEING AVl'GINTED TO THE EXCISB. 

Searching auld wives' barrels, 

Och, hon ! the day ! 
That clarty barm should stain my laurels ; 

But — what'll ye say? 
These movin' things, ca'd wives and weans, 
Wad move the very hearts o' stanes ! 



ON HEARING THAT THERE WAS FALSEHOOD IN THE 
REV. DR. B 'S VERY LOOKS. 

That there is falsehood in his looks 

I must and will deny ; 
They say their master is a knave — 

And sure they do not lie. 



POVERTY. 

In politics if thou wouldst mix, 
And mean thy fortunes be ; 

Bear this in mind,— be deaf and blind, 
Let great folks hear and see. 



ON A SCHOOLMASTER 

IN CLEISH PARISH, FTFESHIRE. 

Here lie Willie Michie's banes ; 

O Satan, when ye tak him, 
Gie him the schoolin' of your weans, 

For clever deils he'll mak them ! 



EXTEMPORE IN THE COURT OF SESSION. 



171 



LINES 

WRITTEN AND PRESENTED TO MRS, •KEMBLE, ON SEEING HER IN THE CHARACTER 
OF YARICO IN THE DUMFRIES THEATRE, I794. 

Kemble, thou cur'st my unbelief 

Of Moses and his rod ; 
At Yarico's sweet notes "of grief 

The rock with tears had flow'd. 



I MURDER hate by field or flood, 
Tho' glory's name may screen us ; 

In wars at hame I'll spend my blood, 
Life-giving war of Venus. 



LINES. 

The dieities that I adoie 

Are social Peace and Plenty, 

I'm better pleased to make one more, 
Than be the death of twenty. 



LINES 

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW, AT THE KING'S ARMS TAVERN, DUMFRIES. 

Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering 
'Gainst poor Excisemen ? give the cause a hearing ; 

What are your landlords' rent-rolls ? taxing ledgers : 
■^hat premiers, what ? even Monarchs' mighty gaugers 

Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men ? 
What are they, pray, but spiritual Excisemen ? 



LINES 

WRITTEN ON THE wrNDOW OF THE GLOBE TAVERN, DUMFRIES. 

The graybeard, Old Wisdom, may boast of his treasures, 

Give me with gay P'olly to live : 
I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures. 

But Folly has raptures to give. 



EXTEMPORE IN THE COURT OF SESSION. 

Tune—' KilUccrankie. * 



LORD ADVOCATE. 

He clcnch'd his pamphlets in his fist, 

He quoted and he hinted. 
Till in a declamation-mist, 

His argurnent he tint it : 
He gaped for't, he graped for't, 

He fand it was awa, man ; 
I5ut wliat his common sense came short,' 

He eked out wi' law, man. 



MR. ERSKINE. 

Collected Harry. stood awec. 

Then open'd out his arm, man ; 
His lordship sat wi* ruefu' c'e. 

And ey'd the gathering storm, man ; 
Like wind-diiv'n hall it did assail, 

Or torrents owre a linn, man ; 
The Bench sac wise, lift up their eyes, 

Half-wauken'd wi' the din, man. 



172 Epitaph oh a country laird. 



LINES 

WRITTEN UNDER THE PICTUKE OF MISS BURNS. (SEE PAGE 473.J 

Cease, ye pnides, your envious railing. 

Lovely Burns has charms — confess : 
True it is, she had one failing. 

Had a woman ever less ? 

ON MISS J. SCOTT, OF AYR. 

Oh ! had each Scot of ancient times 
Been, Jeanie Scott, as thou art, 
The bravest heart on English ground 
Had yielded like a coward. 

EPIGRAM ON CAPTAIN FRANCIS GROSE, 

THE CELEBT?ATED ANTIQUARV. 

The Devil got notice that Grose vras a-dying. 

So whip ! at the summons, old Satan came flying ; 

But when he approach'd where poor Francis lay moaning 

And saw each bed-post with its burden a-groaning, 

Astonish'd ! confounded ! cry'd Satan, * By God, 

I'll want 'im, ere I take such a damnable load.* 

EPIGRAM ON ELPHINSTONE'S tRANSLATION OF MARTIAL'S 

EPIGRAMS. 

O THOU whom Poetry abhors, 
Whom Prose had turned out of doors, 
Heard'st thou yon groan ? — proceed no further, 
'Twas laurel'd Martial calling murther. 

EPITAPH ON A COUNTRY LAIRD, 

NOT QUITE SO WISE AS SOLOMON, 

Bless Jesus Christ, O CardonesSi 

With grateful lifted^'eyes, 
Who said that not the soul alone^ 

But body too, must rise : 
For had he said, * The soul alone 

From death I will deliver* 
Alas, alas ! O Cardoness, 

Then thou hadst slept for ever I 



A BAMD'S EPITAPH. 173 



EPITAPH ON A NOISY POLEMIC. 

Below thir stanes lie Jamie's banes : 

O Death, it's my opinion. 
Thou ne'er took such a l^leth'rin' bitch 

Into thy dark dominion ! 



EPITAPH ON WEE JOHNI^IY. 

ffic^j'acet wee Johnny. 

Whoe'er thou art, O reader, know 
That death has murder'd Johnie ! 

An' here his body lies fu' low 

For saul he ne'er had ony, 

EPITAPH ON A. CELEBRATED RULING ELDER. 

Mere souter Hood in Death does sleep; 

To Hell, if he's gahe thither, 
Satan, gie him thy gear to keep. 

He'll haud it weel thegither. 

EPITAPH FQR ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. 

Know thou, O stranger to the fame 
Of this much lov'd, much honour'd name, 
(For none that knew him need be told) 
A warmer heart death ne'er made cold. 

EPITAPH FOR GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. 

THRpoor man weeps — here Gavin sleeps. 

Whom canting wretches blam'<l : 
But with such as he, wliere'er he be. 

May 1 be sav'd or damn'd ! 

A BARD'S EPITAPH. 



Is there a whim-inspired fool, 

Uwre fast for thought,o\vre hot lor rule, 

Uwre blate to seek.owre proud to snool. 

Let fum draw near'; 
And owre this grassy heap sing dool, 

And drap a tear. 



Is there a Bard of rustic song, 

Who, noteless, steals the crowds among. 

That weekly this area throng, 

O, pass not by • 
But, with a fralcr-leeling strong. 

Here, heave a sigh. 



1/4 



EPITAPH ON A WAG. 



Is there a man whose judgment clear, 
Can others teach the course to steer, 
Yet runs, hhtiself, Ufe's mad career. 

Wild as the wave ; 
Here pause — and, thro' the starting tear, 

Survey this grave. 

The poor Inhabitant below 

Was quick to learn and wise to know, 

And keenly felt the friendly glow, 



And softer fla'/iie^ 
But thoughtless follies laid him low, 
And staiii'd his name ! 

Reader, attend— whether thy soul 
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, 
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole, 

In low pursuit ; 
Know, prudent, cautious self-control 

Is wisdom's root. 



EPITAPH ON. MY FATHER. 

O YE, whose cheek the tear of pity stains. 

Draw near with pious rev'rence and attend ! 
Here lie the loving husband's dear remains, 
^ The tender father, and the gen'rous friend. 

The pitying heart that felt for human woe ; 

The dauntless heart that fear'd no human pride ; 
The friend of man, ta vice alone a foe ; 

* For ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side.' 



EPITAPH ON JOHN DOVE, 

IKN'KEEPER, MAUCHLI^'E. 



Here lies Johnny Pidgeon ; 

What was his religion ? 

Wha e'er desires to ken, 

To some other warl' 

Maun follow the carl, 

For here Johnny Pidgeon had nane ! 



Strong ale was ablution, — 
Small beer persecution, 
A dram was memento mori ; 
But a full flowing bowl 
Was the saving his soul, 
And port was celestial glory. 



EPITAPH ON JOHN BUSHBY, 

WRITER, IN DUMFRIES. 

Here lies John Bushby, honest man ! 
Cheat him, Devil, if you can. 



EPITAPH ON A WAG IN MAU'CHLINE. 



Lament him. Mauchline husbands a', 

He aften did assist ye ; 
For had ye staid whole weeks awa. 

Your wives they ne'er had miss'd ye. 



Ye MaucKline bairns, as on ye pass 
To school in bands thegither, 

O tread ye lightly on liis grass, 
Perhaps he was your father. 



CRACE BEFORE MEAT. 



»7S 



EPITAPH ON A PERSON NICKNAMED *THE MARQUIS/ 

WHO DESIRED BURNS TO WRITE ONE ON HIM. 

Here lies a mock Marquis whose titles were shammed, 
If ever he rise, it will be to be damn'd. 



EPITAPH ON WALTER R [RIDDEL]. 

Sic a reptile was Wat, 

Sic a miscreant slave, 
That the worms ev'n damn*d him 

When laid in his grave. 

• In his flesh there's a famine,* 

A starv'd reptile cries ; 

• An' his heart is rank poison,* 

Another replies. 

ON HIMSELF. 

Here comes Burns 

On Rosinante ; 
She's d poor. 

But he's d canty ! 

GRACE BEFORE MEAT. 

O Lord, when hunger pinches sore. 

Do thou stand us in need. 
And send us from thy bounteous store, 

A tup or wether head ! Amen. 

ON COMMISSARY GOLDIE'S BRAINS. 

Lord, to account who dares thee call. 

Or e'er dispute thy pleasure ? 
Else why witbin so thick a wall 

Enclose so poor a treasure ? 

IMPROMPTU 

ON AN INNKEEPER NAMED BACON, WHO INTRUDED HIMSELF INTO ALL COMPANIES. 

At Brownhill we always get dainty good cheer. 
And plenty of bacon each day in the year ; 
We've all things that's nice, and mostly in season. 
But why always Bacon — come, give me a reason ? 

ADDRESSED TO A LADY 

WHOM THE AUTHOR FEARED HE HAD OFFENDED. 



Rusticity's ungainly form 
May cloud the highest mind ; 

But when the heart is nobly warm. 
The good excuse will finil. 



Propriety's cold cautious rules 
Warm fervour may o'erlook ; 

But spare poor sensibility 
The ungentle, harsh rebuke. 



176 ON MR. M'MURDO. 



.EPIGRAM. 

When , deceased, to the devil went down, 

'Twas nothing would serve him but Satan's* own crown ; 

* Thy fool's head,' quoth Satan, ' that crown shall wear never, 

I grant thou'rt as wicked, but not quite so clever.* 

LINES INSCRIBED ON A PLATTER. 



My blessings on ye, honest wife, 

I ne'er was here before : 
Ye've wealth o' gear for spoon and 
knile — 

Heart coulcf not wish for more. 



TO 



Heaven keep you clear of sturt and 
strife. 

Till far ayont four score, 
And by the Lord o' death and life, 

I'll ne'er gae by your door ! 



Your billet, sir, I grant receipt ; 

Wi' you I'll canter ony gate, 

Though 'twere a trip to yon blue warl', 
VVhare birkies march on burning marl : 
Then, sir, God willing, I'll attend ye, 
And to his goodness I commend ye, 

R. Burns. 

ON MR. M'MURDO. 

BiEST be M'Murdo to his latest day, 
iNo eovious cloud o'ercast his evening ray ; 
No wrinkle furrow d by tne hand of care. 
Nor even sorrow add one silver hair ! 
Oh, may no son the father's honour stam. 
Nor ever daughter give the mother pain. 

TO A LADY 

WHO WAS LOOKING UP THE TEXT DURING SERMON. 

Fair maid, you need not take the hint. 

Nor idle texts pursue : 
'Twas^«//(y simieis that he meant — 

Not angels such as you ! 

IMPROMPTU. 

How daur ye ca' me howlet-faced, 
Ye ugly, glowering spectre? 

My face was but the keek in' glass. 
An' there ye saw your picture. 



TO A PAINTER, 



1377 



TO MR. .MACKENZIE, SURGEON, MAUCHLINE, 



Friday first 's the day appointed 
By the Right Worshipful anointed. 

To hold our grand procession ; 
To get a blad o' Johnie's morals, 
And taste a swatch o' Manson's barrels 

V the way of our profession. 

The Master and the Brotherhood 
Would a' be glad to see you ; 



For me I would be mair than proud 
To share the mercies wi' you. 
If Death, then, wi' skaith, then, 
Some mortal heart is hechtin', 
Inform him, and storm him, 
That Saturday you'll fecht him. 



Robert Burns. 



Mossgiely An. M. 5790. 



TO A PAINTER. 



Dear , I'll gie ye some advice 

You'll tak it no uncivil : 

You shouldna paint at angels mair. 
But try and paint the devil. 



To paint an angel's kittle wark, 
Wi' auld Nick there's less danger ; 

You'll easy draw a weel-kent face, 
But no sae weel a stranger. 



LINES WRITTEN ON A TUMBLER- 



You're welcome, Willie Stewart ; 

You're welcome, Willie Stewart ; 
There's ne'er a flower that blooms in 
May, 

That's half sae welcome's thou art. 

Come, bumpers high, express your joy, 
The bowl we maun renew it ; 



The tappit-hen, gae bring her ben, 
To welcome Willie Stewart. 

May foes be Strang, and friends be 
slack, 

Ilk action may he rue it ; 
May woman on him turn her back. 

That wrangs thee, Willie Stewart ! 



ON MR. W. CRUIKSHANK 

OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EUINBUR_,H. 

Honest Will to heaven is gane. 
And mony shall lament him ; 

His faults they a' in Latin lay, 
In English nane e'er kent them. 



SONGS. 



THE LASS 0' BALLOCHMVLE. 

1viiiL-~^ Miss Forles's Farewrll to Banff, or Ettrick Banks* 



'TwAS even— the dewy fields were 
green, 

On every blade the pearls hang ; 
The Zephyrs wanton'd round the bean, 

And bore its fragrant sweets alang : 
In every glen the Mavis sang, 

All nature listening seem'd the while : 
Except where green-wood echoes rang, 

Amang the braes o' Eallochmyle. 

With careless step I onward stray'd. 

My heart rejoic'd in nature's joy. 
When musing in a lonely glade, 

A maiden fair I chanc'd to spy ; 
Her look was like the morning's eye, 

Her hair like nature's vernal smile, 
Perfection whisper'd passing by, 

Behold the lass o* Ballochmyle ! 

Fair is tlie morn in floweiy May, 
And sweet is night in Autumn mild, 

When roving thro' the garden gay, 
Or wandering in a lonely wild : 



But Woman, Nature's darling child ! 

There all her charms she does compile^ 
Ev'n there her other works are foil'd 

By the bonie lass o' Ballochmyle. 

O, had she been a country maid. 

And I the happy country swain, 
Tho' shelter'd in the lowest shed 

That ever rose on Scotland's plain ! 
Thro' weary winter's wind and rain. 

With joy, with rapture, I would toil; 
And nightly to my bosom strain 

The bonie lass o' Ballochmyle^ 

Then pride might climb the slipp'ry steep. 

Where fame and honours lofty shine ; 
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep. 

Or downward seek the Indian mine ; 
Give me the cot below the pine, 

To tend the flocks or till the soil. 
And every day have joys divine, 

With the bonie lass o' Ballochmyle. 



SONG OF DEATH. 

A GAELIC AIR. 

%CE^Z.—A yield 0/ l>atile. Tivie of the day— Evening. The ivorntdcd and dying of the 
Victorians army are supposed to join in the song. 

Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, ,and ye skies, 

Now gay with the broad setting sun ! 
Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear, tender tics. 

Our race of existence is run ! 



Thou grim King of Terrhrs, thou life's gloomy foe, 

Go, frighten the coward and slave ! 
Go, teach them to tremble, fell Tyrant ! but knov/. 

No terrors hast thou for the brave ! 



AULD ROB MORRIS. 



m 



Thou strik'st the dull peasant— he sinks in the dark, 

Nor saves e'en the wreck of a name : 
Thou strik'st the young hero — a glorious mark ! 

He falls in the blaze of his fame ! 

In the field of proud honour — our swords in our hands. 

Our King and our Country to. save — 
While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands. 

O ! who would not die with the brave ! 



MY AIN KIND DEARIE O. 



When o'er ttie hill the eastern star 

Tells bughtin-time is near, my jo ; 
And owsen frae the furrow'd field 

Return sae dowf and wearie O ; 
Down by the burn, where scented birks 

Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo, 
ril meet thee on the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie O. 

In mirkest glen, at midnight hour, 
I'd rove, and ne'er be eerie O, 

If thro' that glen I gaed to thee, 
My ain kind dearie O. 



Altho' the night were ne'er sae wild, 
And I were ne'er sae wearie O, 

I'd meet thee on the lea-rig, 
My ain kind dearie O. 

The hunter lo'es the morning sun, 

To rouse the mountain deer, my jo ; 
At noon the fisher seeks the glen. 

Along the burn to steer, my jo ; 
Gie me the hour o' gloamin grey. 

It maks my heart sae cheery O, 
To meet thee on the lea-rig. 

My ain kind dearie O. 



AULD ROB MORRIS. 

There's auld Rob Morris thiat wons in yon glen. 
He's the king o' gude fellows and wale of auld men ; 
He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine, 
And ae bonie lassie, his darling and mine. 

She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May ; 
She's sweet as the ev'ning amang the new hay ; 
As blythe and as artless as the lamb on the lea, 
And dear to my heart as the light to my ee. 

But oh ! she's an, heiress, auld Robin's a laird. 
And my daddie has nouglit but a cot-house and yard; 
A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed. 
The wounds I must hide that will soon be my dead. 

The day comes to me, but delight brings me nane ; 
The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane : 
I wander my lane, like a night-troubled ghaist. 
And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast 

had she but been of a lower degree, 

1 then might hae hop'd she wad smil'd upon me; 
O how past descriving had then been u\y bliss. 
As now my distraction no words can express I 

Six 



!8o 



DUNCAN GRAY. 



NAEBODV. 

I HAE a wife o' my ain, 
I'll partake \vi' naebody ; 

I'll tak cuckold frae nane, 
I'll gie cuckold to naebody. 

I hae a penny to spend, 
There — thanks to naebody ; 

I hae naething to lend, 
I'll borrow iVae naebody. 

I am naebody's lord, 
I'll be slave to naebody ; 

I hae a guid braid sword, 
I'll tak dunts frae naebody. 

I'll be meriy and free, 
I'll be sad for naebody ; 

If naebody care for me, 
I'll care for naebody. 

MY WIFE'S A WINSOME 
WEE THING. 

She is a winsome wee thing, 
She is a handsome wee tiling, 
She is a bonie wee thing. 
This sweet wee wife o' mine. 

I never saw a fairer, 

I never lo'ed a dearer, 

And neist my heart I'll wear her, 

For fear my jewel tine. 

She is a winsome wee thing, 
She is a handsome wee thing, 
She is a bonie wee thing, 
This sweet wee wife o* mine. 

The warld's wrack, we share o't, 
The warstle and the care o't ; 
Wi' her I'll blythcly bear it, 
And think my lot divine. 

DUNCAN GRAY. 

Duncan Gray came here to woo. 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 

On blythc yule niglU when wc were fou, 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 



Maggie coost her head fu' high, 
Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, 
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh ; 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't 

Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd ; 

Ha, ha, &c. 
Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig, 

' Ha, ha, &c. 
Duncan sigh'd baith out and in, 
Grat his een baith bleer't and blin, 
Spak o' lowpin o'er a linn ; 

Ha, ha, &c. 

Time and chance are but a tide. 

Ha, ha, &c. 
Slighted love is sair to bide. 

Ha, ha, &c. 
Shall I, like a fool, quoth he, 
For a haughty hizzie die ? 
She may gae to — France for me J 

Ha, ha, &c 

How it comes let doctors tell, 

Ha, ha, &c, 
Meg grew sick — as he grew well, 

Ha, ha, &c. 
Something in her bosom wrings, 
For relief a sigh she brings ; 
And O, her een, they spak sic things ! 

Ha, ha, &c. 

Duncan was a lad o' grace, 

Ha, ha, &c. 
Maggie's was a piteous case. 

Ha, ha, &c. 
Duncan couldna be her death. 
Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath j 
Now they 're crouse and cantie baith ! 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 

O POORTITH. 

Tune—' / had a Horse* 

O POORTITH cauld,and restless love, 

Ye wreck my peace between ye ; 
Yet poortith a' I could forgive, 
An' 'twercna for my Jeanie. 
O why should fate sic pleasure have 
Life's dearest bands untwining' 
Or why sae sweet a flower as love 
Depend on P'ortune's shining ? 



OPEN THE DOOR TO ME, OH I 



iSi 



This warld's wealth when I think on, 
Its pride, and a' the lave o*t ; 

Fie, fie on silly coward man, 
That he should be the slave o't. 
O why, &c. 

Her een sae bonic blue betray 
How she repays my passion ; 

But prudence is her o'erword aye, 
She talks of rank and fashion. 
O why, &c. 

O wha can prudence think upon. 

And sic a lassie by him ? 
O wha can prudence think upon, 

And sae in love as I am ? 
O why, &c. 

How blest the humble cotter's fate ! 

He woos his simple dearie ; 
The silly bogles, wealth and state. 
Can never make them eerie. 

O why should fate sic pleasure have, 
Life's dearest bands untwining ? 
Or why sae sweet a flower as love 
Depend on Fortune's shining ? 

GALLA WATER. 

There's braw braw lads on Yarrow 
braes, 
That wander thro' the blooming 
heather ; 
But Yarrow braes nor Ettrick shaws 
Can match the lads o' Galla Water, 

But there is ane, a secret ane, 
Aboon them a* I lo'e him better ; 

And I'll be his,, and he'll be mine, 
The bonie lad o' Gp.lla Water. 



Altho' his daddie was nae laird. 
And tho' I hae nae meikle tocher ; 

Yet rich in kindest, truest love, 
We'll tent our flocks by Galla Water. 

It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth. 
That coft contentment, peace or plea- 
sure ; 
The bands and bliss o' mutual love, 

that's the chiefest warld's treasure! 

LORD GREGORY. 

O MIRK, mirk is this midnight hour, 
And loud the tempest's roar ; 

A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tow'r, 
Lord Gregory, ope thy door. 

An exile frae her father's ha'. 

And a' for loving thee ; 
At least some pity on me" shaw. 

If love it mayna be. 

Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove, 

By bonie Irwine side. 
Where first I own'd that virgin-love, 

1 lang, lang had denied ? 

How aften didst thou pledge and vow. 
Thou wad for aye be mine ! 

And my fond heart, itsel sae true, 
It ne'er mistrusted thine. 

Hard is thy heart, Lord Gregory, 

And flinty is thy breast : 
Thou dart of heaven that flashest by, 

O wilt thou give me rest ! 

Ye mustering thunders from above, 

Your willing victim see ! 
But spare, and pardon my fause love. 

His wrangs to heaven and me! 



OPEN THE DOOR TO ME, OH ! 



WITH ALTERATIONS. 



Oh, open the door, some pity to shew. 

Oh, open the door to me, Oh ! 
Tho' thou hast been false, I'll ever prove true, 

Oh, open the door to me, Oh ! 



1 82 yEs:^iE. 



Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek. 

But caulder thy love for me, Oh ! 
The frost that freezes the life at my heart. 

Is nought to my pains frae tliee. Oh ! 

The wan moon is setting behind the white wave, 

And time is setting with me, Oh ! 
False friends, false love, farewell ! for mair 

I'll ne'er trouble them, nor thee, Oh ! 

She has open'd the door, she has open'd it wide ; 

She sees his pale corse on the plain, Oh ! 
My tme love, she cried, and sank down by his side. 

Never to rise again, Oh ! 



MEG O' THE MILL. 

Air—* O, bonie Lass, •willyoU lie.in is "Barrack* 

O KEM ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten, 
An' ken ye what Meg o' the Mill hasjTotten ? 
She has gotten a coof.wi' a claut o' siller. 
And broken the heart o' the barley Miller. 

The Miller was strappin, the Mi-ller was ruddyj 
A heart like a lord, and a hue like a lady ; 
The Laird was a widdiefu', bleerit knurl ; 
She's left the guid fellow and ta'en the churl. 

The Miller he hecht her a heart leal and loving ; 
The Laird did address her wi' matter mair moving, 
A fine pacing horse wi' a clear chained bridle, 
A whip by her side, and a bonie side-saddle. 

O wae on the siller, it is sae prevailing ; 
And wae on the love that is fix'd on a mailen! 
A tocher's nae word in a true lover's parle, 
But, gie me my love, and a fig for the warl ! 



JESSIE. 

TvtiE--' Borne Dimdee* 

True hearted was he, the sad swain o' the Yarrow, 

And fair are the maids on the banks o' the Ayr, 
But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding river, 

Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair : 
To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over ; 

To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain ; 
Grace, beauty, and elegance, fetter.her lover, 

And maidenly modesty fixes the chain. 



LOGAN BRAES. 



183 



O, fresh is the rose in the gay, dewy morning, 

And sweet is the lily at evening close ; 
But m the fair presence o' loyely young Jessie, 

Unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose. 
Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring ; 

Enthron'd in her een he delivers his law : 
And still to her charms she alone is a stranger ! 

Her modest demeanour's the jewel of a*. 

WANDERING WILLIE. 

Here awa, there awa, vi'andering Willie, 
Here awa, there aWa, haud awa hame ; 

Come to my bosom, my 'ain only dearie, 
Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 

Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting. 
Fears for my Willie brought tears in my ee ; 

Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, 
The simmer to nature, my Willie to me ! 

Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave of your slumt^ers ; 

How your dread howling a lover alarms ! 
Wauken, ye breezes, row gently, ye billows, 

And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms. 

But oh, if he's faithless, and mijids na his Nannie, 
Flow still between us, thou wide-roaring main ; 

May I never see it, may I never trow it. 
But, dying, believe that my Willie 's my ain. 



LOGAN BRAES. 

Tune— 'Z<7^«« Water* 



O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide 
That day I was my Willie's bride ; 
And years sinsyne hae o'er us run, 
Like Logan to the simmer sun. 
But now thy flow'ry banks appear 
Like drumlie winter, dark and drear. 
While my dear lad maun face his faes, 
Far, far frae me and Logan Braes. 

Again the merry month o' May 
Has made our hills and valleys gay ; 
The birds rejoice in leafy bowers^ 
The bees hum round the breathing 

flowers ; 
Blithe morning liits his rosy eye, 
And evening's tears arc teajs of joy : 
My soul, delightless, a' surveys. 
While Willie's far frae Logan Braes. 



Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, 
Amang her nestlings, sits the thrush ; 
Her faithfu' mate will share her toil, 
Or wi' his song her cares beguile : 
But I wi* my sweet nurslings here, 
Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer. 
Pass widow'd nights and joyless days. 
While Willie's far frae Logan Braes. 



O wae upon you, men o' state, 
That brethren rouse to deadly hate ! 
As ye mak monie a fond heart mourn, 
Sae may it on your heads return ! 
How can your flinty hearts enjoy 
The widow's tears, the orphan's cry ? 
But soon may peace bring happy days, 
And Willie hame to Logan Braes ! 



I $4 



PHILLIS THE FAIR. 



THERE WAS A LASS. 

Im-sk—* Botiie Jean* 

There was a lass, and she was fair, 
At kirk and market to be seen, 

When a' the fairest maids were met, 
The fairest maid was bonie Jean. 

And ay she wrought her mammie's wark, 
And ay she sang sae merrily : 

The blyth^st bird upon the bush 
Had ne'er a lighter heart than she. 

But hawks will rob the tender joys 
That bless the little lintwhite's nest ; 

And frost will blight the fairest flowers, 
And love will break the soundest rest. 

Young Robie was the bra west lad. 
The flower and pride of a' the glen ; 

And lie had owsen, sheep and kye, 
And wanton naigies nine or ten. 

He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste, 
He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down ; 

And lang ere witless Jeanie \^^ist, 

Her heart was tint, her peace was 
stown. 

As in the bosom o' the stream 

The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en ; 

So trembling, pure, was tender love. 
Within the breast o' bonie Jean. 

And now she works her mammie's wark, 
And aye she sighs wi' care and pain ; 

Yet wistna what her ail might be. 
Or what wad mak her weel again. 

But didna Jeanie's heart loup light, 
And didna joy blink in her ee. 

As Robie tauld a tale o' love, 
Ae e'enin on the lily lea ? 

The sun was sinking in the west. 
The birds sang sweet in ilka grove ; 

His cheek to hers he fondly prest. 
And whisper'd thus his tale o' love : 

O Jeanie fair. I lo'e thee dear ; 

O canst thou think to fancy me ? 
Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot, 

And learn to tent the farms wi' me ? 



At barn or byre thou shaltna drudge, 
Or naething else to trouble thee ; 

But stray amang the heather-bells, 
And tent the waving corn wi' me. 

Now what could artless Jeanie do ? 

She had nae will to say him na : 
At length she blush'd a sweet consent. 

And love was ay between them Iwa. 

PHILLIS THE FAIR. 

Tune — * Robin Adair.* 

While larks with little wing 

Fann'd the pure air, 
Tasting the breathing spring. 

Forth I did fare : 
Gay the sun's golden eye 
Peep'd o'er the mountains high ; 
Such thy morn ! did I cry, 

Phillis the fair. 

In each bird's careless song 

Glad did I share ; 
While yon wild flowers among, 

Chance led me there : 
Sweet to the opening day. 
Rosebuds bent the dewy spray ; 
Such thy bloom ! did I say, 

^Killis the fair. 

Down in a shady walk. 

Doves cooing were, 
I maik'd the cruel hawk 

Caught in a snare : 
So kind may Fortune be. 
Such make his destiny, 
He who would injure thee, 

Phillis the fair. 

BY ALLAN STREAM. 

Tvue.—* Allan Water.* 

By Allan stream I chanc'd to rove. 

While Phcebus sank beyond Benleddi ; 
The winds were whispering thro' the 
grove, 

The yellow corn was wavmg ready : 
I listen'd to a lover's sang. 

And thought on youthfu' pleasures 
monie ; 
And ay the wild wood echoes rang—: 

O, dearly do I love thee, Annie \ 



WHISTLE, AND J'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD, 



i8S 



O, happy be the woodbine bower, 

Nae nightly bogie male it eerie ; 
Nor ever sorrow stain the hour, 

The place and time I met my dearie ! 
Her head upon my throbbing breast, 

She, sinking, said 'I'm thine for ever!' 
While monie a kiss the seal imprest, 

The sacred vow, we ne'er should sever. 



The haunt o' spring's the primrose brae, 

The simmer joys the flocks to follow ; 
How cheery thro' her shortening day 

Is autumn, in her weeds- o' yellow ! 
But can they melt the glowing heart. 

Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure. 
Or, thro' each nerve the rapture dart, 

Like meeting her, our bosom's treasure? 



HAD I A CAVE. 

Tune— *i?tf3/» Adair,* 

Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore. 
Where the v/inds howl to the waves' dashing roar ; 

There would I weep my woes, 

There seek my lost repose, 

Till grief my eyes should close, 
Ne'er to wake more. 

Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare 
All thy fond plighted vows— fleeting as air? 

To thy new lover hie. 

Laugh o'er thy perjury, 

Then in thy bosom try. 
What peace is there ! 

WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD 

Tune—' My Jo, Janet: 

O WHISTLE, and I'll come to you, my lad ; 
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad : 
Tho' father and rnither and a' should gae mad, 
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad. 

But warily tent, when ye come to court me, / 

And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee ; 
Syne up the back-stile, and let naebody see, 
And come as ye were na comin to me. 
And come, &c. 

O whistle, &c. 

At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me, 
Gang by me as tho' that ye car'd na a flie : 
But steal me a blink o' your bonie black ee, 
Yet look as ye were na lookin at me 
Yet look, &c. 

O whistle, &c. 

Ay vow and protest that ye care na for me, 
And whiles ye may lightly my beauty a wee ; 
But court na anither, tho' jokin ye be. 
For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me. 
For fear, &c. 

O whistle, &c. 



iS6 



WILT THOU BE MY DEARIEt 



HUSBAND, HUSBAND, CEASE 
YOUR STRIFE. 

Tune— 'jW> Jo, Janet* 

Husband, husband, cease your strife, 
Nor louger.idly rave, sir ; 

Tho' I am your wedded wife, 
Yet I am not your slave, sir. 

* One of two must still obey, 

Nancy, Nancy ; 
Is it man or woman, say. 
My spouse, Nancy?' 

If 'tis still the lordly word. 

Service and obedience ; 
I'll desert my sov'reign lord. 

And so good-bye allegiance ! 

* Sad will I be, so bereft, 

Nancy, Nancy ! 
Yet I'll tiy to make a shift, 
My spouse, Nancy.' 

My poor heart then break it must. 
My last hour I'm near it : 

When you lay me in the dust, 
Think, think how you will bear it. 

* I will hope and trust in Heaven, 

Nancy, Nancy; 
Strength to bear it will be given. 
My spouse, Nancy.' 

Well, sir, froin the silent dead 
Still I'll try to daunt you ; 

Ever round your midnight bed 
Horrid sprites shall haunt you.) 

* I'll wed another, like my dear 

Nancy, Nancy ; 
Then all hell will fly for fear, 
My spouse, Nancy.' 



DELUDED SWAIN. 
Tune—' The Colliers Dochter* 

Df.LUDF.D swain, the pleasure 
The fickle Fair can give thee. 

Is but a fairy treasure. 
Thy hopes will soon deceive thee. 



The billows on the ocean, 
The breezes idly roaming. 

The clouds' uncertain motion. 
They are but types of woman. 

! art thou not ashamed 
To doat upon a feature ? 

If man thou wouldst be named, 
Despise the silly Creature. 

Go, find an honest fellow ; 

Good claret set before thee : 
Hold on till thou art mellow. 

And then to bed in glory. 

SONG. 

Tune—' The Quakers Wiff.' 

Thine am I, my faithful fair. 
Thine, my lovely Nancy ; 

Ev'ry pulse along my veins, 
Ev'ry roving fancy. 

To thy bosom lay my heart, 
There to throb and languish : 

Tho' despair had wrung its core. 
That would heal its anguish. 

Take away these rosy lips. 
Rich with balmy treasure ! 

Turn away thine eyes of love. 
Lest I die with pleasure ! 

s 

What is life when wanting love? 

Night without a morning ! 
Love's the cloudless summer sun. 

Nature gay adorning. 

WILT THOU BE MY DEARIE? 

A NEW SCOTS SONG. 

Tune — ' The Sutor's Dochter. 

Wilt thou be my dearie? 

When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart, 

Wilt thou let me clieer thee ? 

By the treasure of my soul. 

That's the love I bear ihee f 

1 swear and vow that only thou 
Shalt ever be my dearie — 
Only thou, I swear and vow, 
.Shalt ever be my dearie. 



RARK! THE MA VIS. 



187 



Lassie, say thou lo'es me ; 
Or if thou wilt na be my ain. 
Say na thou'lt refuse me : 
If it winna, canna be, 
Thou for thine may choose me, 
I.et me, lassie, quickly die. 
Trusting that thou lo'es me — 
Lassie, let me quickly die. 
Trusting that thou lo'es me. 

BANKS OF CREE. 

Tune — ' The Flowers of Ediiihtrgh' 

Here is the glen, and here the bower. 
All underneath the birchen shade ; 

The village-bell has toU'd the hour, 
O what can stay my lovely maid ? 

'Tis not Maria's whispering call ; 

'Tis but the balmy breathing gale, 
Mixt with some warbler's dying fall, 

The dewy star of eve to hail. 

It is Maria's voice I hear \ 

So calls the woodlark in the grove 
His little faithful mate to cheer. 

At once 'tis music — and 'tis Jove. 

And art thou come ? and art thou true ? 

O welcome, dear, to love and me ! 
And let us all our vows renew. 

Along the flow'ry banks of Cree. 

ON THE SEAS AND FAR 
AWAY. 

Tune — ' O'er the Hills aiidjar away.^ 

How can my poor heart be glad, 
When absent from my Sailor lad ? 
How can I the thought forego. 
He's on the seas to meet the foe? 
Let me wander, let me rove, 
Still my heart is with my love ; 
Nightly dreams and thoughts by day 
Are with him that's far away, 

CHORUS. 
On the seas and far away. 
On stormy seas and far away ; 
Nightly dreams and thoughts by day 
Are aye with Ijim that's far away. 



When in summer's noon I faint. 
As weary flocks around me pant. 
Haply in this scorching sun 
My Sailor's thund'ring,at his gun : 
Bullets, spare my only joy ! 
Bullets, spare my darling boy ! 
P'ate, do with me what you may, 
Spare but him that's far a-\vay ! 
On the seas, &c. 

At the starless midnight hour. 

When winter rules with boundless 

power; 
As the storms the forest tear, 
And thunders rend the howling air, 
Listening to the doubling roar. 
Surging on the rocky shore, 
AH I can — I weep and pray, 
For his weal that's far away. 
On the seas, &c. 

Peace, thy olive wand extend. 
And bid wild War his ravage end, 
Man with brother man to meet. 
And as a brother kindly greet : 
Then may heaven M'ith prosperous gales 
Fill my Sailor's welcome sails. 
To my arms their charge convey, 
My dear lad that's far away. 
On the seas, &c. 

HARK! THE MAVIS. 

Tune—' CcC the Vowes to the Knowcs.* 

CHORUS. 

Ca' the yowes to the knowes, 
Ca' them where the heather grows, 
Ca' them where the burnie rows. 
My boriie dearie. 

Hark ! the mavis' evening sang 
Sounding Clouden's woods amang. 
Then a faulding let us gang, 
My bonie dearie. 
Ca' the, &c. 

We'll gae down by Clouden side, 
Thro' the hazels spreading w'ide. 
O'er the v/aves that sweetly glide 
To the moon sae clearly. 
Ca' the, &c. 



i8S 



HO IV LANG AND DREARY. 



Yonder Clouden's silent towers, 
Where at moonshine midnight hours, 
O'er the dewy-bending flowers, 
Fairies dance sae cheery. 
Ca' the, &c. 

Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear ; 
Thou'rt to love and Heaven sae dear, 
Nocht of ill may come thee near, 
My bonie dearie. 
Ca' the, &c. 

Fair and lovely as thou art. 
Thou hast stown my very heart ; 
I can die. — but canna part, 
My bonie dearie. 
Ca' the, &c. 

While waters wimple to the sea ; 
While day blinks in the lift sae hie ; 
Till day-cauld death shall blin' my ee, 
Ye shall be my dearie. 
Ca' the, &c. 

SHE SAYS SHE LO'ES ME 
BEST OF A'. 

Tune — ' Onagh's Water-fall.' 

Sae flaxen were her ringlets. 

Her eyebrows of a darker hue, 
Bewitchingly o'erarching 

Twa laughing een o' bonie blue. 
Iler smiling, sae wyling. 

Wad make a wretch forget his woe ; 
What pleasure, what treasure. 

Unto these rosy lips to grow ! 
Such was my Chloris' bonie face. 

When first her bonie face I saw, 
And aye my Chloris' dearest charm, 

She says she lo'es me best of a'. 

Like harmony her motion ; 

Her pretty ancle is a spy 
Betraying fair proportion. 

Wad make a saint forget the sky ; 
Sae warming, sae charming, 

Her faultless form and gracefu' air ; 
Ilk feature — auld Nature 

Declar'd that she could do nae mair: 
Hers are the williyg chains o* love. 

By conquering beauty's sovereign law ; 
^nd aye ray Chloris' dearest charm, 

She say^she lo'es me best of a' 



Let others love the city, 

And gaudy show at sunny noon ; 
Gie me the lonely valley. 

The dewy eve, and rising moon 
Fair beaming, and streaming 

Her silver light the boughs amang ; 
While falling, recalling. 

The amorous thrush concludes his. 
sang: 
There, dearest Chloris, wilt Ihou rove. 

By wimpling burn and leafy shaw, 
And hear my vows o* truth and love^ 

And say thou lo'es me best of a' t 

• 

HOW LANG AND DREARY. 

Tune — ' Cauld Ka:U in Aberdeen* 

How lang and dreary is the night. 
When I am frae my dearie ; 

I restless lie frae e'en to morn, 
Tho' I were ne'er sae weaiy. 

CHORUS. 

For oh, her lanely nights are lang ; 

And oh, her dreams are eerie ; 
And oh, her widow'd heart is sair, 

That's absent frae her dearie. 

When I think on the lightsome days 
1 spent wi' thee, my dearie, 

And now that seas between us roar, 
Hov/ can I be but eerie ! 
For oh, &c. 

How slov/ ye move, ye heavy hours ; 

The joyless day how drearie ! 
It wasna sae ye glinted by. 

When I was wi' my deaiie. 
For oh, &c. 

THE LOVER'S MORNING 
SALUTE TO HIS MISTRESS. 

Tune—' Deil tak the Wars.' 

Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest 
creature ? 

Rosy mora now lifts his eye. 
Numbering ilka bud which Nature 

Waters wi' the tears o' joy : 

Now thro' the leafy woods, 

And by tlie reeking floods, 



Pake WELL, thou stream. 



1% 



"Wild Nature's tenants freely, gladly 
stray ; 
The lintwhite in his bower 
Chants o'er the breathing flower; 
The lav'rock to the sky 
Ascends wi' sangs o' joy. 
While the sun and thou arise to bless 
the day. 

Phoebus, gilding the brow o* morning, 
Banishes ilk darksome shade. 

Nature gladdening and adorning ; 
Such to me my lovely maid. 
When absent frae my fair. 
The murky shades o' care 

With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen 
sky : 
But when, in beauty's light, 
vShe meets my ravish'd sights 
\yhen thro' my very heart 
Her beaming glories dart — 

'Tis then I wake to life, to light, and joy. 



LASSIE Wr THE LINT-WHITE 

LOCKS. 

'Xx^vv.-—' Rothiemurchu^s RoHt.' 

CHORUS. 

Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, 
Bonie lassie, artless lassie. 

Wilt thou wi' me tent the flocks ? 
Wilt thou be my dearie O ? 

Now nature deeds the flowery lea. 
And a' is young and sweet like thee ; 
O wilt thou share its joys wi' me, 
And say thou'lt be my dearie O ? 
Lassie wi', &c. 

And when the welcome simmer-shower 
}{as cheer'd ilk drooping little flower. 
We'll to the breathing woodbine bower 
At Gultry noon, my dearie O. 
Lassie wi', &c. 

Vv lien Cynthia lights, wi' silver ray. 
The weary shearer's hameward way, 
Thro' yellow waving fields we'll stray. 
And talk o" love, my dearie 0> 
Lassie wi', &c. 



And when the hpwling v/intry blast 
Disturbs my lassie's midnight rest ; 
Enclasped to my faithfu' breast, 
I'll comfort thee, my dearie O. 
Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, 

Bonie lassie, artless lassie. 
Wilt thou wi' me tent the flocks ? 
Wilt thou be my dearie O ? 



THE AULD MAN. 

Tune—' The Death of the Linnet.* 

But lately seen in gladsome green 

The woods rejoic'd the day, 
Thro' gentle showers the laughing 
flowers 

In double pride were gay : 
But now our joys are fled, 

On winter blasts awa ! 
Yet maiden May, in rich array, 

Again shall bring them a*. 

But my white pov/, nae kindly tliowe 

Shall melt the snaws of age ; 
My trunk of eild, but buss or bield, 

Sinks in time's wintry rage. 
Oh, age has weary days. 

And nights o' sleepless pain ! 
Thou golden time o' youthfu' prime, 

Why com'st thou not again ? 



FAREWELL, THOU STREAM. 
Tune — 'Nancys to the Greenwood gane. 

Farewell, thou stream that winding 
flows 

Around Eliza's dwelling ! 
O Mem'ry ! spare the cruel throes 

Within my bosom swelling : 
Condemn'd to drag a hopeless chain, 

And yet in secret languish, 
To feel a fire in ev'ry vein. 

Nor dare disclose my anguish. 

Love's veriest wretch, unseen, unknown, 
I fain 'my griefs would cover : 

The bursting sigh, th' unweeting groan, 
Betray the hapless lover. 



190 



CONTENTED IVJ' LITTLE. 



I know thou doom'st me to despair, 
N.oi* wilt nor canst relieve me ; 

But oh, Eliza, hear one prayer, 
For pity's sake forgive me ! 

The music of thy voice I heard. 
Nor wist while it enslav'd me ; 



I saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear'd, 
Till fears no more had sav'd me : 

Th' unwary sailor thus aghast, 
The wheeling torrent viewing, 

'Mid circling horrors sinks at last 
In overwhelming ruin. 



CONTENTED WI' LITTLE. 

Tune — ^ Lumps o^ pudding* 

Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair. 
Whene'er I forgather vid' sorrow and care, 
I gie them a skelp as they're creepm* alang, 
Wi' a cog o' gude swats, and an auld Scottish sang. 

I wTiyles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; 
But man is a soger, and life is a faught : 
My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch, 
And my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch dare touch. 

A towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa', 
A night o' gude fellowship sowthers it a' ; 
When at the blythe end of our journey at last, 
Wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past ? 

e on her way, 



Blind Chance, let her snapper and stoyte 

Be't to me, be't frae me, e en let the jad _ 

Come ease, or come travail ; come pleasure or pain. 

My warst word is — * Welcome, and welcome again I * 



gae: 



MY NANNIE'S AWA. 

Txjau-^' There' II iiezer be peace till yamie comes havie* 

Now in her green mantle blythe Nature anays. 
And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes. 
While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw ; 
But to me it's delightless — my Nannie's awa. 

The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn, 
And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn : 
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw. 
They mind me o' Nannie — my Nannie's awa. 

Thou laverock that springs frae tlie dews o' the lawn. 
The shepherd to warn o* the grey-brealdng da\m, 
And thou, mellow mavis, that hails the night-fa*, 
Gie over for pity — my Nannie 's awa. 

Come autumn sac pensive, m yellow and grey, 
And soothe mc wi' tidings o' nature's decay ; 
The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving sna\v, 
Alane can delight mc — now Nannie's awa. 



O LASSIE, ART THOU SLEEPING YET? 



lOI 



SWEET FA'S THE EVE. 

Tune- — * Cvaigiehim-wood* 

Sweet fa's the eve on Craigie-burn, 
And blythe awakes the morrow. 

But a' the pride o' spring's return 
Can yield me nocht but sorrow. 

I see the flowers and spreading trees, 
I hear the wild birds singing ; 

But what a weary wight can please, 
And care his bosom wringing ? 

Fain, fain would I my griefs impart. 
Yet dare na for your anger ; 

But secret love will break my heart. 
If I conceal it laliger. 

If thou refuse to pity me. 

If thoii shalt love anither. 
When yon green leaves fa' frae the tree, 

Around my grave they'll wither. 



-0 LASSIE, ART THOU 
SLEEPING YET ? 

Tune — * Let me in this at night' 

O Lassie, art thou sleeping yet ? 
Or art thou wakin, I would wit ? 
For love has bound me hand and foot, 
And I would fain be in, jo. 

CHORUS. 

O let me in this ae night, 

This ae, ae, ae night ; 
For pity*s sake this ae night, 

O rise and let me in, jo. 



Thou, bear's! the winter wind and weet, 
Nae star blinks thro' the driving sleet ; 
Tak pity on mjr weary feet. 
And shield me frae the rain, jo. 
O let me in, &c. 

The bitter blast that round me blaws. 
Unheeded howls, unheeded fa's ; 
The cauldness o' thy heart's the cause 
Of a' my grief and pain, jo. 

let me in, &c 

HER ANSWER. 

O TELL na me o' wind and rain, 
Upbraid na me wi' cauld disdain ! 
Gae back the "gait ye cam again, 
I winna let you in, jo. 

CHORUS. 

I tell you now this ae night. 

This ae, ae, ae night ; 
And ance for a' this ae night, 

1 winAa let you in, jo. 

The snellest blast, at mirkest hours, 
That round the. pathless wand'rer pours, 
Is nocht to what poor she endures. 
That's tntsted. faithless man, jo. 
I tell you now, &c. 

The sweetest flower that dedc'd the mead, 
Now trodden like the vilest weed ; 
Let simple maid the lesson read. 
The weird may be her ain, jo. 
I tell you now, &c. 

The bird that charm'd his summer-day. 
Is now the cruel fowler's prey ; 
Let witless, trus'ting woman say 
How aft her fate 's the same, jo^ 
I tell you now, .&C. 



SONG. 

Tm-^^—' Humours of glen.' 

Their groves o' sweet myrtles let foreign lands reckon. 
Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume ; 

Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan, 
Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom. 

Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers, 
Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen : 

For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flowers, 
A listening, the linnet, aft wanders my Jean. 



192 



ADDRESS TO THE WOODLARK. 



Tho' rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valleys, 
And cauld Caledonia's blast on the wave ; 

Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace, 
What are they ? The haunt of the tyrant and slave ! 

The slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubHling fountains, 

The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain ; 
He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains. 

Save love's willing- fetters, the chains o' his Jean. 



'TWAS NA HER BONIE BLUE EE. 

Tune—' Laddie, lie near me' 

*TwAS na her bonie blue ee was my ruin ; 
Fair tho' she be, that v/as ne'er my undoing ; 
'Twas the dear smile when naebody did mind us, 
'Twas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance o' kindness. 

Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me, 
Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me ■; 
But tho' fell fortune should fate us to sever, 
Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever. 

Chloris, I'm thine wi' a passion sincerest. 
And thou hast plighted me love o' the dearest ! 
And thou'rt the angel that never can alter, 
Sooner the sun in his motion would falter. 



ADDRESS TO THE WOOD- 
LARK. 

Tune—' WlureHl bonie Ann lie.' 

O STAY, sweet warbling woodlark, stay, 
Nor quit for me the trembling spray, 
A hapless lover courts thy lay. 
Thy soothing fond complaining. 

Again, again that tender part, 
That I may catch tliy melting art ; 
For surely that wad touch her heart, 
Wha kills me wi' disdaining. 

Say, was thy little male unkind. 
And heard thee as the careless wind ? 
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd 
Sic notes o' wae could wauken. 

Thou tells o* never-ending care ; 
O' speechless grief, and dark despair ; 
For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae majr ! 
Or my poor heart is broken ! 



HOW CRUEL ARE THE 

PARENTS. 
Tune— •yi'/zw Anderson my ^o* 

How cruel are the parents 

Who riches only prize, 
And to the wealthy booby 

Poor woman sacrifice. 
Meanwhile the hapless daughter 

Has but a choice of strife ; 
To shun a tyrant father's hate, 

Become a wretched wife. 



The ravening hawk pursuing. 

The trembling dove thus Hies, 
To shun impelling ruin 

A while her pinions tries ; 
Till of escape despairing. 

No shelter or retreat. 
She trusts the ruthless falconer. 

And drops beneath his feel. 



FORLORN, MY LOVE. 



'^()% 



MARK YONDER POMP. 

Tune — ' Deil tak the wars.' 

Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion, 

Round the wealthy, titled bride : 
But when compar'd with real passion. 
Poor is all that princely pride. 
What are their showy treasures ? 
What are their noisy pleasures ? 
The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art : 
The polish'd jewel's blaze 
May draw the wond'ring gaze. 
And courtly grandeur bright 
The fancy may delight, 
But never, never can come near the 
heart. 
But did you see my dearest Chloris, 

In simplicity's array; 
Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower 
is, 
Shrinking from the gaze of day. 
O then, the heart alarming, 
And all resistless charming. 
In Love's delightful fetters she chains 
the willing soul ! 
Ambition would disown 
The world's imperial crown ; 
Even Avarice would deny 
His worshipp'd deity. 
And feel thro' every vein Love's rap- 
tures roll. 



I SEE A FORM, I SEE A FACE. 

Tune — * This is no viy ain house.' 

O THIS is no my ain lassie. 

Fair tho' the lassie be ; 
O weel ken I my ain lassie. 

Kind love is in her ee. 

I see a form, I see a face, 
Ve weel may wi' the fairest place 
It wants, to me, the witching grace. 
The kind love that's in her ee. 
O this is no, &c. 

She's "bonle, blooming, straight, and talf, 
And lang has had my heart in thrall ; 
And aye it charms my very saul. 
The kind love that's in her ee. 
O this is no» &c. 
B 



A thief sae pawkie is my Jean, 
To steal a blink, by a' unseen ; 
But gleg as light are lovers' een. 
When kind love is in the ee. 
O this is no, &c. 

It may escape the courtly sparks. 
It may escape the learned clerks ; 
But weel the watching lover marks 
The kind love that's in her ee. 
O this is no, &c. 



O BONIE WAS YON ROSY BRIER. 

Tone—' / wis/t ity love was in a tfure^' 

O BONIE Was yon rosy brier, 

That blooms sae fair frae haunt o' man ; 
And bonie she, and ah, how dear ! 

It shaded frae. the e'enin sun. 

Yon rosebuds in the morning dew. 
How pure amang the leaves sae green; 

But purer was the lover's vow 
They witness'd in their shade yestreen. 

Ail in its rude and prickly bower, 
That crimson rose, how sweet and fair! 

But love is far a sweeter flower 
Amid life's thorny path o' care. 

The pathless wild, and wimpling burn, 
Wi' Chloris in my arms, be mine ; 

And I, the world, nor wish, nor scorn. 
Its joys and griefs alike resign. 



FORLORN, MY LOVE. 

Tune— * Z^^ me in this ae ntght.* 

Forlorn, my love, no comfort near, 
Far, far from thee, I wander here ; 
Far, far from thee, the fate severe 
At which I most repine, love. 

CHORUS. 

O wert thou, love, but near me. 
But near, near, near me ; 
How kindly thouAvouldst cheer me, 
And mingle sighs with mine, loye 

o 



m 



LAST MA Y A BRA W WOOER. 



Around me scowls a wintry sky, 
That blasts each' bud of hope and joy ; 
And shelter, shade, nor home have I, 
Save in those arms of thine, love. 
O wert, &r- 



Cold, aller'd friendship's cruel part. 
To poison fortune's ruthless dart — 



Let me not break thy faithful heart, 
And say that fate is mme, love. 
O wert, &c. 

But dreary Iho' the moments fleet, 
O let me think we yet shall meet ! 
That only ray of solace sweet 
Can on tliy Chloi-is shine, love. 
O wert, &c. 



LAST MAY A BRAW WOOER. 
Tune — ^ Lothian Lassie* 

Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen, 

And sair wi' his love he did deave me : 
I said there was naething I hated like men. 

The deuce gae wi'm to believe me, believe me, 

The deuce gae wi'm to believe me. 

He spak o' the darts in my bonie black ecn. 

And vow'd for my love he was dying; 
I said he might die when he liked for Jean : 

The Lord forgie me for lying, for lying. 

The Lord forgie me for lying ! 

A weel-stocked mailen, himsel for the laird. 
And marriage aff-hand, were his proffers : 

1 never loot on that 1 kend it, or car'd ; 

But thouglil I might hae waur offers, waur offers. 
But thought I miglit hae waur offers. 

But what wad ye think ? in a fortnight or less, 

The deil tak hib taste to gae near her \ 
He up the lang loan to my black coubin Bess, 

Guess ye how, the jad ! I could bear her, could bear her. 

Guess ye how, the jad ! I could bear her. 

But a' the niest week as I fretted wi* eare, 

1 gaed to the tryste o' Dalgarnock, 
And wha but my fine fickle lover was there, 

I glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock,, a warlock, 

I glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock. 

But owre my left shouthcr I gae him a blink. 

Lest necbors might say I was saucy ; 
My wooer he caper'd as he'd been in drink, 

And vow'd 1 was his dear lassie, dear lassie, 

And vow'd I was his dear lassie 



ALTHO' THOV MAUN N^VER BE MINE, l^j; 



I spier'd for my cousin fu' couthy and sweet, 
Gin she had recover 'd her hearin. 

And hew her new shoon fit her auld shachl't feet— 
But, heavens ! how he fell a swearin, a swearin, 
But, heavens ! how he fell a swearin. 

He begged, for Gudesake ! I 'tvad be his wife, 
Or else I wad kill him wi' sorrow : 

So e'en to preserve the poor body in life, 
I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow, 
I think I maun wed him to-morrow. 



HEY FOR A LASS WI' A TOCHER. 

Tune—' Balinamona orai 

AwA wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms, 
The slender bit beavity you grasp in your arms : 
O, gie me the lass that has acres o' charms, 
O, gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms. 

• CHORUS. 

Then hey, for a lass wi' a tocher, then hey, for a lass 

wi' a tocher. 
Then hey, for a lass wi** a tocher; the nice yellow 

guineas for me. 

Your beauty's a flower in the.moming that blows, 
And withers the faster, the faster it grows ; 
But the rapturous charm o' the bonie green knowes, 
Ilk spring they're new deckit wi' bonie white yowes. 
Then hey, &c. 

And e'en when this beauty your bosom has blest, 
The brightest o' beauty may cloy, when possest : 
But the sweet yellow darlings wi' Geordie imprest. 
The langer ye hae them — the mair they're carest. 
Then hey, &c. 



ALTHO' THOU MAUN NEVER BE MINE. 

TvuBr^' Here's a health to thettt iluit's awa, Hiney* 

CHORUS. 

Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear. 
Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear ; 
Thou art as sv/eet as the smile when fond lovers meet. 
And soft as their parting tear — ^Jessy I 
oa 



!96 



THE YOUNG HICHLAND ROVER, 



Altho' thou maun never be mine, 

Altho' even hope is denied ; 
'Tis sweeter for thee despairing, 

Than aught in the world beside — Jessy ! 
Here's a health, &c. 

1 mourn thro' the gay, gaudy day. 
As, hopeless, I muse on thy charms : 

But welcome the dream o* sweet slumber, 
Por then I am lockt in thy arms— JeBsy t 
Here's a health, &c. 

I guess by the dear angel smile, 
I guess by the love-rolling ee; 

But why urge the tender confession 
'Gainst. fortune's fell cruel decree — ^Jessy ! 
Here's a health, &c. 



THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY. 

CHORUS. 

Bonie lassie, will ye go, will ye go, 

will ye go, 
Bonie Idssie, will ye go to the Birks of 

Aberfeldy ? 

Now simmer blinks on flowery braes, 
And o'er the crystal streamlet plays. 
Come let us spend the lightsome days 
In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 
Bonie lassie, &c. 

While o'er their heads the- hazels hing, 

The little bifdies blythly sing, 

Or lightly flit on wanton wing 

In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 

Bonie lassie, &c. 

The braes ascend like lofty v/a's, 
The foaming stream deep roaring fa's, 
O'crhung wi'. fragrant spreading shaws, 
The Birks of Aberfeldy. 
Bonie lassie, &c. 

The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers, 
White o'er the linns the burnie pours, 
And rising, weets wi' misty showers 
The Birks of Aberfeldy. 
Bonie lassie, &c. 



Let fortune's gifts at random flee. 
They ne'er shall draw a wish-fraeme, 
S\ipremely blest wi' love and thee. 
In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 
Bonie lassie, &c. 



THE YOUNG HIGHLAND 
ROVER. 

Tune-*' Morag." 

Loud blaw the frosty breezes. 

The snaws the mountains cover j 
Like winter on me seizes. 

Since my young Highland Rover 

Far wanders nations over. 
Where'er he go, where'er he stray, 

May Heaven be his warden ; 
Return him safe to fair Strathspey, 

And bonie Castle-Gordon ! 

The trees now naked groaning, _ 
Shall soon wi' leaves be hinging, 

The birdies dowie moaning, 
Shall a' be blythely singing. 
And every flower be springing, 

Sac I'll rejoice the lee-lang day, 
When by his mighty warden 

My youth's return'd to fair Strathspey, 
And bonie Castle-Gordon. 



MUSri^G O.V THE ROARING OCEAN 



197 



STAY, MY CHARMER. 

Tt'NE — ^ An gille dubh ciar dhnbh.' 

Stay, my charmer, can you leave me ? 
Cruel, cruel to deceive me ! 
Well you know how much you grieve 
me ; 

Cruel charmer, can you go ? 

Cruel charmer, caii you go ? 

By my love so ill requited ; 

By the faith you fondly plighted ; 

By the pangs of lovers slighted ; 

Do not, do not leave me so ! 

Do not, do not leave me so ! 



FULL WELL THOU KNOW'ST. 

Tune — ' Rotkietmirchus's rant. ' 

CHORUS, 

Fairest maid on Devon banks. 
Crystal Devon, winding Devon, 

Wilt thou lay that frown aside. 
And smile as thou wert wont to do ? 

Full well thou know'st I love thee dear, 
Couldst thou to malice lend an ear ? 
O, did not love exclaim, "Forbear, 
Nor use a faithful lover so ? " 
Fairest maid, &c. 

Then come, thou faii^est of the fair, 
Those wonted smiles, O, let me share ; 
And by thy beauteous self I swear. 
No love but thine my heart shall 
know. 

Fairest maid, &c» 



.STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT. 

Thickest night, o'erhang my dwelling ! 

Howling tempests, o'er me rave ! 
Turbid torrents, wintry swelling, 

Still surround my lonely cave ! 

Crystal streamlets gently flowing, 
Busy haunts of base mankind, 

Western breezes softly blowing, 
Suit not my distracted mind. 



In the cause of right engag'd. 
Wrongs injurious to redress, 

Honour's war we strongly "Wag'd, 
But the heavens deny'd success. 

Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us, 
Not a hope that dare attend ; 

The wide world is all before us— - 
But a world without a friend ! 

RAVING WINDS AROUND HER 

BLOWING. 

Tune — ' M'Gregor o/Ruara's lament. 

Raving winds around her blowing, 
Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing, 
By a river hoarsely roaring, 
Isabella stray'd deploring : 
" Farewell, hours tliat late did measure 
Sunshine days of joy and pleasure ; 
Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow. 
Cheerless night that knows no morrow 1 

" O'er the past too fondly wandering. 
On the hopeless future pondermg ; 
Chilly grief my life-blood freezes, 
Fell despair my fancy seizes. 
Life, tbou soul of every blessing. 
Load to misery most distressing, 
O, how gladly I'd resign thee, 
And to dark oblivion join thee ! " 

MUSING ON THE ROARING 
OCEAN. 

Tune — ' Drtnviion dubh.' 

Musing on the roaring ocean 
Which divides my love and me ; 

Wearying Heaven in warm devotion. 
For his weal where'er he be. 

Hope and fear's alternate billow 
Yielding late to nature's law ; 

Whisp'ring spirits round my pillow 
Talk of him that's far awa. 

Ye whom sorrow never wounded. 

Ye who never shed a tear, 
Care-untroubled, joy-surrounded. 

Gaudy day to you is dear. 

Gentle night, do thou befriend me ; 

Downy sleep, the curtain draw ; 
Spirits kind, again attend me. 

Talk of him that's far awa I 



J98 



THE LAZY MIST. 



BLYTHE WAS SHE. 
Tune—* Andro and his cnttie gun.* 

CHORUS. 

Blythe, blythe and merry was she, 
Blythe was she but and ben : 

Blythe by the banks of Em, 
And blythe in Glenturit glen. 

Bv Ochtertyre grows the aik, 

On Yarrow banks, the birken shaw ; 
But Phemie was a bonier lass 

Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw. 
Blythe, &c. 

Her looks were like a flower in May, 
Her smile was like a simmer morn ; 

She tripped by the banks of Ern 
As light's a bird upon a thorn. 
Blythe, &c. 

Her bonie face it was as meek 

As onie lamb's upon a lee ; 
The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet 

As was the blink o* Phemie's ee. 
Blythe, &o 



The Highland hills I've wander'd wide. 
And o'er the Lowlands I hae been ; 

But Phemie was the blythest lass 
That ever trod the dewy green, 
Blythe, &c. 

PEGGY'S CHARMS. 

Tune — 'Neil Gov/s lamentation for 
Abercairny* 

Where, braving angry winter's storms, 

The lofty Ochils rise^ 
Far in their shade my Peggy's charms 

First blest my wondering eyes. 
As one who, by some savage stream, 

A lonely gem surveys, 
Astonish'd doubly, marks it beam 

With art's most polish'd blaze. 

Blest be the wild, sequester'd shade. 

And blest the day and hourj 
Where Peggy's charms I first survey'd, 

When first I felt their pow'r ! 
The tyrant death with grim control 

May seize my fleeting breath ; 
But tearing Peggy from my soul 

Must be a stronger death. 



THE LAZY MIST. 

Irish k\Tt.-^' Coolun* 

The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill. 

Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill ; 

How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear. 

As autumn to winter resigns the pate year i 

The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown. 

And all the gay foppery of summer is flown : 

Apart let me wander, apart let me muse. 

How quick time is flying, how keen fate pursues ; 

How lung I have lived, but how much lived in vain 

How little of life's scanty span may remain : 

What aspects, old Time, in his progress, has worn ; 

What ties, cruel fate in my bosom has torn. 

How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd ! 

And downward, how weakcn'd, how darken'd, how pain'd ! 

This life's not worth having with all it can give, 

For something beyond it poor man sure must live, 



I LOVE MY JEAf/. 



>99 



A ROSE-BUD BY MY EARLY 

WALK. 

Tune—' The Shepherd! s Wife.' 

A ROSE-BUD by my early vvalk, 
Adown a corn-enclosed bav/k, 
Sae gently bent its thorny- stalk, 
All on a dewy morning. 

Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled, 
In a' its crimson glory spread, 
And drooping rich the dewy head, 
It scents the early morning. 

Within the bush, her covert nest 
A little linnet fondly prest, 
The dew sat chilly on her breast 
Sae early in the morning. 

She soon shall see her tender brood, 
The pride, the pleasure o' the wood, 
Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd, 
Awake the early morning. 

So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair, 
On trembling string or vocal air, 
Shalt sweetly pay the tender care 
That tents thy early morning. 

So thou, sweet rose-bud, young and gay, 
Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day, 
And bless the parent's evening ray 
That watch'd thy early morning.. 

TIBBIE, I HAE SEEN THE DAY. 

Tune — ' luvercauld's reel.^ 

CHORUS. 
O Tibbie, I hae seen the day. 

Ye would na been sae shy ; 
For laik o' gear ye lightly me, 

But, trowth, I care na by. , 

Yestreen I met you on the moor, 
Ye spak na, but gaed by like stoure : 
Ye geek at me because I'm poor, 
But fient a hair care I. 
O Tibbie, I hae, &c. 

I doubt na, lass, but ye may think, 
Because ye hae the name o' clink, 
That ye can please me at a wink, 
Whene'er ye like to try. 
O Tibbie, I hae, &c. 



But sorrow tak him that's sae mean, 
Altho' his pouch o' coin were clean, 
Wha foljows ony saucy quean 
' That looks sae proud and high. 
O Tibbie, I hae, &c. 

Altlio' a lad were e'er sae smart. 
If that he want the yellovir dirt, 
Ye'll cast your head anither airt. 
And answer him fu' dry. 
■ O Tibbie, I hae, &c. 

But if ye hae the name o' gear, 
Ye'll fasten to him like a brier, 
Tho' hardly he, for sense or lear, 
Be better than the kye. 
O Tibbie, I hae, &c. 

But, Tibbie, lass,, tak my advice, 
Your daddy's gear maks you sae nice ; 
The deil a ane wad spier your price. 
Were ye as poor as L 
O Tibbie, I hae, &c. 

There lives a lass in yonder park, 
I would na gie her in her sark, 
For thee wi' a' thy thousand mark ; 
Ye need na look sae high. 
O Tibbie, I hae, &c. 



I LOVE MY JEAN. ^ 

Tune — 'Miss Admiral Gordor^s Strathspey. 

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, 

I dearly like the west. 
For there- the bonie lassie lives, 

The lassie I lo'e best 
There wild woods grovv^,. and rivers row, 

And monie a hill between ; 
But day and night my fancy's flight 

Is ever wi' my Jean. 

I see her in the dewy flowers, 

I see her sweet and fair : 
I hear her in the tunefu' birds, 

I hear her charm the air : 
Tlieue's Hot a bonie floWer that springs 

By fountain, shaw, or green ; 
There's not a bonie bird that sings, 

But minds mc o' my Jean. 



200 



THE HAPPY TRIO. 



O, WERE I ON PARNASSUS' 

HILL! 

Tune — ^ My Leva is lost io me* 

O, WERE I on Parnassus' hill ! 
Oi- had of If elicon my fill ; 
That I might catch poetic skill, 

To sing how dear I love thee. 
Ijut Nith maun be my Muse's well, 
My Muse maun be thy bonie sel ; 
On Corsincon I'll glowr and spell, 

And write how dear I love thee. 

Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay ! 
For a' the lee-lang simmer's day, 
I could na sing, 1 could na say, 

How much, how dear, I love thee. 
I see thee dancing o'er the green. 
Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae slean. 
Thy tempting looks, thy roguish een — 

By Heaven and earth I love thee ! 

By night, by day, a-field, at hame. 
The thoughts o' thee my iDreast inflame ; 
And aye I muse and sing thy name — 

I only live to love thee. 
Tho' I were doom'd to wander on, 
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun. 
Till my last weary sand was run ; 

Till then— and then I'd love thee. 



TyCE BLISSFUL DAY 
Tune — * Seventh of Novanbcr.' . 

The day returns, my bosom burns, 

The blissful day we twa did meet ; 
Tho' winter wild in tempest toil'd, 

Ne'er summer-sun was half sae sweet. 
Than a' the pride that loads tlie tide, 

And crosses o'er the sultry line ; 
Than kingly robes, than crowns and 
globes. 

Heaven gave me more, it made thee 
mine. 

While day and night can bring delight, 

Or nature aught of pleasure give ; 
Wliile joys above my mind can move, 

For thee, and thee alone, I live ! 
When that grim foe of life below 

Comes in between to make us part ; 
The iron hand that breaks our band, 

It breaks my bliss — it breaks my heart. 



.THE BRAES O' BALLOCHMYLE. 

Tune — ' Miss Forbeis farewell to Banff.' 

The Catrine woods. were yellow seen, 

The flowers decay'd on Catrine lee, 
Nae lav'rock sang on hillock green. 

But nature sicken 'd on the ee. 
Thro' faded groves Maria sang, 

Hersel in beauty's bloom the whyle, 
i\nd aye the wild-wood echoes rang, 

Fareweel the braes o' Ballochmyle. 

Low in your wintiy beds, ye flowers, 

Again ye'll flourish fresh and fair ; 
Ye birdies dumb, in with'ring bowers. 

Again ye'll charm the vocal air. 
But here, alas ! for me nae mair 

Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile j 
Fareweel the bonie banks of Ayr, 

Fareweel, fareweel, sweet Balloch' 
myle. 

THE HAPPY TRIO. 

Tune — * Willie brew' d a peek d maut.' 

O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut, 
And Rob and Allan cam to see ; 

Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, 
Ye wad na find in Christendie. 

CHORUS. 

We are na fou, we're no that fou. 
But just a drappie in our ee ; 

The cock may craw, the day may daw. 
And ay we'll taste the barley bree. 

Here are we met, three merry boys. 
Three merry boys, 1 trow, are we ; 

And monie a night we've meny been. 
And monie mae we hope to be ! 
We are na fou, &c. 

It is the moon, I ken her horn, 
That's blinkin in the lift sae hie ; 

She shines sae bright to wyle us hame. 
But by my sooth she' II wait a wee \ 
We are na fou, &c 

Wha fi.rst shall rise to gang awa, 
A cuckold, cowhrd loun is he ! 

Wha first beside his chair shall fa'. 
He is the King among us three ! 
We are na fou, &c. 



k 



TAM GLEN. 



201 



THE BLUE-EYED LASSIE. 
Tune — ' The btathrie dt.' 

I GAED a waefu' gate yestreen, 

A gate, I fear, I'll dearly rue ; 
I gat my death frae twa sweet een, 

Twa lovely een o' bonie blue. 
'Tv/as not her goldea ringlets bright, 

Her lips like roses wat wi' dew, 
Her heaving bosom lily-white ; — 

It was her een sae bonie blue. 

She talk'd, she smil'd, my heart she 
wyl'd, 

She charm'd my soul I wist na how ; 
And ay the stound, the deadly wound, 

Cam frae her een sae bonie blue. 
But spare to speak, and spare to speed ; 

She'll aiblins listen to my vow : 
Should she refuse, I'll lay my dead 

To her twa een sae bonie blue. 



JOHN ANDERSON MY JO. 

John Anderson my jo, John, 

When we were first acquent. 
Your locks were like the raven, 

Your bonie brow was brent ; 
But now your brow is beld, John, 

Your locks are like the snaw ; 
But blessings on your frosty pow, 

John Anderson my jo. 

John Anderson my jo, John, 

We clamb the hill thegither ; 
And monie a canty day, John, 

We've had wi' ane anither : 
Now we maun totter down, John, 

But hand in hand we'll go, 
And sleep thegither at the foot, 

John Anderson my jo. 



TAM GLEN. 

Tune — ' The mucking o' Geordi^s byre* 

My heart is a breaking, dear Tittie, 
Some counsel unto me come len', 

To anger them a' is a pity ; 

put what will I do wi' Tarn Glen ? 



I'm thinking, wi' sic a braw fellow, 
In poortith I might mak a fen' ; 

What care I in liches to wallow, 
If I maunna marry Tarn Glen ? 

There's Lowrie the laird o* Dumeller, 
' Guid-day to you, brute ! ' he comes 
ben : 
He brags and he blaws o' his siller, 
But when will he dance like Tarn 
Glen? 

My minnie does constantly deave me. 
And bids me beware o' young men ; 

They flatter, she says, to deceive me ; 
But wha can think sae o' Tarn Glen? 

My daddie says, gin I'll forsake him. 
He'll gie me guid hunder marks ten : 

But, if it's ordain'd I maun take him, 
O wha will I get but Tam Glen ? 

Yestreen at the Valentines' dealing, 
My heart to my mou gied a sten : 

For thrice I drew ane without failing. 
And tlirice it was written, Tam Glen. 

The last Halloween I was waukin 
My dronkit sark-sleeve, as ye ken ; 

iiis likeness" cam up the house staukin — 
And the very grey breeks o' Tam 
Glen ! 

Come counsel, dear Tittie, don't tarry ; 

I'll gie you my bonie black hen, 
Gif ye will advise me to marry 

The lad I lo'e. dearly, Tam Glen. 



GANE IS THE DAY. 

Tune — "Guidwi/e count the lawin* 

Gane is the day, and mirk's the night. 
But we'll ne'er .stray for faute o' light, 
For ale and brandy's stars and moon, 
And bluid-red wine's the risin' sun. 

CHORUS. 

Then guidwife count the lawin, fhe 

lawin, the lawin. 
Then guidwife count the lawin, and 

bring a coggie main 



202 



IVHAT CAN' A YOUNG LASSIE DO? 



There's wealtli and ease for gentlemen, 
And semple-folk maun fecht and fen', 
But here we're a' in ae accord, 
For ilka man that's drunkJs a lord. 
Then guidvvife count, &c» 



My coggie is a haly pool. 
That heals the wounds o* care and dool ; 
And pleasure is a wanton trout, 
An' ye drink it a' ye'll find him out. 
Then guidwife count, &c. 



M^ TOCHER'S THE JEWEL. 

O MEIKLE thinks my luve o' my beauty, 

And* meikle thinks my luve o' my kin ; 
But little thinks my luve I ken brawlie 

My Tocher's the jewel has charms for him. 
It's a' for the apple he'll nourish the tree ; 

It's a' for the hiney he'll cherish the bee ; 
My laddie's sae meikle in luve wi' the siller. 

He canna hae luve to spare for me. 

Your proffer o' luve *s an airle-penny. 

My Tocher's the bargain ye wad buy; 
But an ye be crafty, I am cunnin, 

Sae ye wi' anither your fortune maun try. 
Ye're like to the timmer o' yon rotten wood ; 

Ye' re like to the bark o' yon rotten tree ; 
Ye'll slip frae me like a knotless thread. 

And ye'll crack your credit wi' mae nor me. 



WHAT CAN A YOUNG LASSIE DO WI' AN OLD MAN ? 
Tune — * What can a Lassie do* 

What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie. 
What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man? 

Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie 
To sell her poor Jenny for siller an' Ian' I 
Bad luck on the penny, &c. 

He's always compleenin frae mornin to e'enin, 
He hosts and he hirples the weary day lang : 

He's doylt and he's dozin, his bluid it is frozen, 
O, dreary's the night wi' a crazy auld man ! 

He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers, 

I never can please him do a' that 1 can ; 
He's peevish, and jealous of a' the young fellows: 

O, dool on the day, I met wi' an auld man ! 

My auld auntie Katie upon me takes pity, 

I'll do my endeavour to follow her plan ; 
I'll cross him, and rack him, until I heart-break him. 

And tlien \\h auld brass will buy me a new pan. 



BESSY AND HER SPIIVNJN WHEEL. 



203 



O, FOR ANE AND TWENTY, 
TAM! 

Tune — ' The Mondiewort.^ 

CHORUS. 

An O for ane and twenty, Tarn ! 

An hey, sweet ane and twenty, Tarn! 
I'll learn my kin a rattlin sang, 

An I saw ane and twenty, Tarn. 

They snool me sair, and baud me down, 

And gar me look like bluntie, Tarn.! 

But three short years will soon wheel 

roun', 

And then comes ane and twenty, Tarn. 

An O for ane, &c. 

A gleib o' Ian', a claut o' gear, 
Was left me by my auntie, Tam ; 

At kith or kin I need na spier, 
An I saw ane and twenty, Tam. 
An O for ane, &c. 

They'll hae me wed a wealthy coof, 
Tho' I mysel' hae plenty, Tam ; 

But hear'st thou, laddie, there's my loof, 
I'm thine at ane and twenty, Tam ! 
An O for ane, &c. 



THE BONIE WEE THING. 

TlFNE— ' The Lads of Saltcoats: 

BoNiE wee thing, cannie wee thing, 
Lovely wee thing, was thou mine, 

I wad wear thee in my bosom, 
Lest my jewel I should tine. 

Wishfully I look and languish 
In that bonie face o' thine \ 

And my heart it stounds wi' anguisli, 
Lest my wee thing be na mine. 

Wit, and grace, and love, and beauty. 

In ae constellation shme ; 
To adore thee is my duty. 

Goddess o' this soul o' mine ! 
Bonie wee, &c. 



THE BANKS OF NITH. 

Tune — ' Robie Donna Gornch. ' 

The Thames flows proudly to the sea, 

Where royal cities stately stand ; 
But sweeter flows the Nith to me, 

Where Cummins ance had high com- 
mand : 
When shall 1 see that honour'd land, 

That winding stream I love so dear ! 
Must wayward fortune's adverse hand 

For ever, ever keep me here ■? 

How lovely, Nitli, thy fruitful vales, 

Where spreading hawthorns gaily 
bloom ; 
How sweetly wind thy sloping dales, 

Where lambkins wanton thro' the 
broom ! 
Tho' wandering, now, must be my doom, 

Far from thy bonie banks and braes, 
May there my latest hours cpnsume, 

Amang the friends of early days ! 



BESSY AND HER SPINNIN 
WHEEL. 

Tune—* Bottom o/the Punch Bowl* 

O lEEZE me on my spinnin wheel, 
O leeze me on my rock and reel ; 
Frae tap to tae that deeds me bien, 
And haps me fiel and warm at e'en ! 
I'll set me down and sing and spin, 
While laigh descends the simmer- sun. 
Blest wi' content, and milk and. meal — 
O leeze me on my spinnin wheel. 

On ilka hand the burnies trot, 
And meet below my theekit cot ; 
The scented birk and hawthorn white, 
Across the pool their arms unite, 
Alike to screen -the birdie's nest. 
And little fishes' caller rest: 
The sun blinks knidly in the biel', 
Where blytlie I turn my spinnin wheel 

On lofty aiks the cushats wail. 
And echo cons the doolfu* tale ; 
The lintwhitcs in the hazel braes, 
Delighted, rivj^l ither's lays ; 



204 



FAIR ELIZA. 



The craik amang the claver hay, 
The paitrick whirrirt o'er the ley, 
The swallow jinkin round my shiel, 
Amuse me at my spinniii wheel. 

Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, 
Aboon distress, below envy, 
O wha wad leave this humble state. 
For a' the pride of a' the great ? 
Amid their flarin, idle toys, 
Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys, 
Can they the peace and pleasure feel 
Of Bessy at her spinnin wheel ? 

COUNTRY LASSIE. 

Tune — * John, ciTine kiss me now' 

In simmer when the hay was mawn. 

And corn wav'd green in ilka field, 
"While claver blooms white o'er the lea, 

And roses blaw in ilka bield ; 
Blythe Bessie in the milking shiel, 

Says, ' I'll be wed, come o't what 
will;' 
Out spak a dame in wrinkled eild, 

*0' guid advisement comes nae ill, 

* It's ye hae wooers monie ane. 

And, lassie, ye're but young ye ken ; 
Then wait a wee, and cannie wale 

A routhie butt, a routhie ben : 
There's Johnie o' the Buskie-glen, 

Fu' is his barn, fu' is his byre ; 
Tak this frae me, my bonie hen. 

It's plenty beets the luver's fire.' 

* For Johnie o* the Buskie-glen 

I dinna care a single flie ; 
lie lo'es sae weel his craps and kye, 

He has nae luve to spare for me : 
But blithe's the blink o' Robie's ee. 

And weel 1 wat he lo'es me dear ; 
Ae blink o' him I wad nae gie 

For Buskie-glen and a' his gear.* 

'O thoughtless lassie, life's a faught ! 

The canniest gate, the strife is sair ; 
But aye fu' han't is fechtin best, 

A hungry care's an unco care : 
But some will spend, and some will 
spare. 

An' wilfu' folk jnaun hat their will ; 



Syne as ye brew, my maiden fair, 
Keep mind that ye mauii drink tlie 
yill.' 

* O, gear will buy me rigs o' land, 

And gear will buy me sheep and kye ; 
But the tender heart o' leesome luve 

The gowd and siller canna buy ; 
We may be poor — Robie and I, 

Light is the burden luve lays on ; 
Content and luve brings peace and joy, 

What mair hae queens upon a throne': 



FAIR ELIZA. 

Tune -' The bouie hruckct Lassie.' 

Turn again, thou fair Eliza, 

Ae kind blink before we part, 
Rue on thy despairiiig lover ! 

Canst thou break his faithfu' heart? 
Turn again, thou fair Eliza ; 

If to love thy heart denies, 
For pity hide the cruel sentence 

Under friendship's kind disguise ! 

Thee, dear maid, hae I offended ? 

The offence is loving thee ; 
Canst thou wreck his peace for ever, 

Wha for thine wad gladly die ? 
WHiile the life beats in my bosom. 

Thou shalt mix in ilka throe: 
Turn again, thou lovely maiden, 

Ae sweet smile on me bestow. 

Not the bee upon the blossom. 

In the ])ride o' sinny noon"; 
Not the little s])orting fairy. 

Ail beneath the simmer moon ; 
Not the poet in the moment 

Fancy lightens in his ee, 
Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture, 

That^hy presence gies to me. 

SHE'S FAIR AND FAUSE. 

She's fair and fause that causes my 
smart, 
I lo'ed her mcikle and lang : 
She's broken her vow, she's broken my 
heart, 
And 1 may c en gae hang. 



THE POSIE. 



10- 



A coof cam in wi' rowth o' gear, 

And I hae tint my dearest dear, 

But woman is but Avarld's gear, 

Sae let the bonie lass gang. 

Whae'er ye be that woman love, 
To this be never blind, 



Nae ferlie 'tis the' fickle she prove, 

A woman has't by kind : 
O Woman lovely, Woman fair ! 
An Angel form 's faun to thy share, 
'Tv/ad been o'er meikle to gien thee 
mair, 

I mean an Angel mind. 



THE POSIE. 



O LUVE will venture in, where it daur na weel be seen, 
O luve will venture in, where wisdom ance has been ; 
But I will down yon river rove, amang the wood sae. green, 
And a' to pu' a Posie to my ain dear May. 

The primrose I will pu', the firstling o' the year, 
And I will pu' the pink, the emblem o' my deai-. 
For she's the pink o' womankind, and blooms without a peer : 
And a' to be a Posie to my ain dear May. 

I'll pu' the budding rose, when Phoebus peeps in view. 
For it's like a baumy kiss o' her sweet bonie mou ; 
The hyacinth 's for constancy, wi' its unchanging blue, 
And a' to be a Posie to my ain dear May. 

The lily it is pure, and the lily it is faii", 
And in her lovely bosom I'll place the lily there ;, 
The daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air, 
And a' to be a Posie to my ain dear May. 

The hawthorn I will pu', wi' its locks o' siller grey. 
Where, like an aged man, it stands at break o' day. 
But the songster's nest within the bush I winna tak away 5 
And a' to be a Posie to my ain dear May. 

The woodbine I \A\\ pu' when the e'ening star is near. 
And the diamond drops o' dew shall be her een sae clear : 
The violet's for modesty which weel she fa's to wear. 
And a' to be a Posie to my ain dear May. 

I'll tie the Posie round wi' tli^ silken band o' luve, 
And I'll place it in her breast, and I'll swear by a' above. 
That to my latest draught o' life the band shall ne'er remuve. 
And this will be a Posie to my ain dear May. 



206 



GLOOMY DECEMBER. 



THE BANKS O'- BOON. 

Tune — ' The Caledonian Hunts delight.^ 

Ye banks and braes o' bonie Doon, 

How can ye bloom sac fresh and fair ! 
Tlow.can ye chant, ye Httle birds, 

(And I sae weary fu' o' care ! 
Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling 
bird, 

That wantons thro' the flowering 
thorn : 
Thou minds me o' departed joys, 

Departed — never to return. 

Thou'lt break my "heart, thou bonie bird, 

That sings beside thy mate. 
For sae I sat, and sae I sang. 

And wist na o' my fate. 
Aft hae I rov'd by bonie Doon, 

To see the rose and woodbine twine; 
And ilka bird sang o' its luve, 

And fondly sae did I o' mine. 

\Vi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 

Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree ; 
And my fause luver stole my rose. 

But ah ! he left the thorn wi' me. 
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose 

Upon a morn in June ; 
And sae I flourish'd on the morn, 

And sae was pu'd on noon. 



VERSION PRINTED IN THE 
MUSICAL MUSEUM. 

Ye flowery banks o' bonie Doon, 
How can ye blume sae fair ! 

How can ye chant, ye littk birds, 
ifVnd I sae fu' o' care. 

Thou' II break my heart, thou bonie 
bird, 

That sings upon the bough ; 
Thou minds me o' the happy days, 

When my fause luve was true. 

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie 
bird, 

That sings beside thy mate ; 
For sae I sat, and sae I sang, 

And wist na o' my fate. 

Aft hae I rov'd by bonie Doon, 
To see the wood-bine twine, 

And ilka bird sang o' its love, 
And sae did I o' mine. 

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose 

Frae off its thorny tree .; 
And my fause luver staw the rose. 

But left the thorn wi' mc. 



GLOOMY DECEMBER. 

Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December ! 

Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and care ; 
Sad was the parting thou makes me remember. 

Parting wi' Nancy, oh ! ne'er to meet mair. 
Fond lovers' parting is sweet painful pleasure, 

Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour ; 
But the dire feeling, O farewell for ever, 

Is anguish unmingl'd and agony pure. 

Wild as the winter now tearing the forest. 

Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown, 
Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom, 

Since my last hope and. last comfort is gone ; 
J^till as I hail thee, thou gloomy December, 

Still shall I haij thee wi' sorrow and care ; 
For sad was the parting thou makes mc remember, 

Parting wi' Nancy, oh ! ne'er to meet mair. 



AFTOl^ WATE^. 



207 



BEHOLD THE HOUR. 

Tone—' Oran Caoil.' 

Behold the hour, the boat arrive ! 

Thou goestj thou darling of my heart : 
Sever'd from thee can I. survive ? 

But fate has will'd, and we must part ! 
I'll oftea greet this surging swell ; 

Yon distant isle will often hail : 

* E'en here I took the last farewell ; 

There latest mark'd her vanish'd sail, ' 

Along tlie solitary shore, 

While flitting sea-fowls round me cry, 
Across the rolling, dashing roar, 

I'll westward turn my wistful eye : 

* Happy, thou Indian grove, ' I'll say, 

'Where now my Nancy's path may be ! 
While thro' thy sweets she loves to stray, 
O tell me, does she muse on me ? ' 



WILLIE'S WIFE. 

TxiHK—* Tibbie Fowler in the Glcn.^ 

Wil.LiE Wasti-E dwalt on Tweed, 
The spot they ca'd it Linkumdoddie, 

Willie was a wabster giiid, 

Cou'd sto\^^^ a clue wi' onie bodie ; 



He had a wife was dour and din, 
O Tinkler Madgie was her mither ; 
Sic a wife as Willie had, 
I wad na gie a button for her. 

She has an ee, she has. but ane. 
The cat has twa the very colour : 

Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump, 

A clapper tongue wad deave a miller ; 

A whiskin beard about her mou. 

Her nose and chin they threaten ither ; 
Sic a wife, &c. 

She's bow-hough'd, she's hein shinn'd, 
Ae limpin leg a hand-breed shorter ; 

She's twisted right, ^he's twisted left, 
To balance fair in ilka quarter : 

She has a hump upon her breast, 
The twin o' that upon her shouther j 
Sic a wife, &c. 

Auld baudrons by the ingle sits. 

An' wi' her loof her face a-washin j 
But Willie's wife is nae sae trig. 

She dights her grunzie wi' a hushion j 
Her walie nieves like midden-creels. 
Her face wad fyle the Logan-water ; 
Sic a wife as Willie had, 
I wad na s^ie a button for her. 



AFTON WATER. 

Flow gently, sv/eet Afton, among thy green braes. 
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise; 
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, svi'eet Aflon, disturb not her dreani. 

Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen, 
Ye \ViJd whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, 
Thou grcen-crcsted lapwing, thy screaming forbear, 
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair. 

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills. 
Far mark'd with tlie courses of clear, winding rills; 
There daily I wander as noon rises high. 
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 

I low i:)lcasant thy banks and green valleys iDcldw, 
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow J 
Tlierc oil as mild cv'uing Weeps over the lea, 
The swcct-sccnted birk shades my Mary and me. 



508 



THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS. 



Thy crystal stream, Aftoii, how lovely it glides, 
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides ; 
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, 
As gathering sweet flow'rets she stems thy clear wave. 

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays ; 
My Mary 's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 



LOUIS, WHAT RECK I BY THEE? 

Tune — * My Mother's aye gloivring o'er me' 

Louis, what reck I by thee, 
Or Geordie on his ocean ? 

Dyvour, beggar loons to me, 
I reign in J eanie's bosom. 

Let her crown my love her law, 
And in her breast enthrone me : 

Kings and nations, swith awa ! 
Reif randies, I disowTi ye ! 

BONIE BELL. 

The smiling spring comes in rejoicing, 

And surly winter grimly flies : 
Now crystal clear are the falling waters. 

And bonie blue are the sunny skies ; 
Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth 
the morning. 

The ev'ning gilds the ocean's swell ; 
All creatures joy in the sun's returning, 

And I rejoice in my bonie Bell. 

The flowery spring leads sunny summer. 

And yellow autumn presses near, 
Then in his turn comes gloomy winter, 

Till smiling spring again appear. 
Thus seasons dancing, life advancing, 

Old Time and Nature their changes 
tell, 
But never ranging, still unchanging 

I adore my bonie Bell. 

FOR THE SAKE OF SOMEBODY. 

Tune—' The Highland Watch's farewell.' 

Mv heart is sair, I dare na tell, 
My heart is sair for somebody ; 

I could wake a winter night, 
For the sake o' somebody ! 



Oh-hon ! for somebody ! 

Oh-hey ! for somebody ! 
I could range the world around. 
For the sake o' somebody. 

Ye powers that smile on virtuous love, 

O, sweetly smile on somebody ! 
Frae ilka danger keep him free, 
And send me safe my somebody. 
Oh-hon ! for somebody ! 
Oh-hey ! for somebody ! 
I wad do — what wad I not ? 
For the sake o' somebody 1 

O MAY, THY MORN. 

O May, thy morn was ne'er sae sweet. 
As the mirk night o' December ; 

For sparkling was the rosy wine, 
And private was the chamber : 

And dear was she I dare na name, 
But I will aye remember. 
And dear, &c. 

And here's to them, that, like oursel, 

Can push about the jorum, 
And here's to them that wish us weel, 

May a' that's guid watch o'er them ; 
And here's to them we dare na tell, 

The dearest o' tlie quorum. 
And here's to, &c. 

THE LOVELY LASS OF 
INVERNESS. 

The lovely lass o' Inverness, 

Nae joy nor pleasure can she see ; 
For e'en and morn she cries, alas ! 

And aye the saut tear blins her ees* 
Drumossie moor, Drumosaie day, 

A waefu' day it was to me ; 
For there I lost my father dear, 

My father dear, and brethren three, 



A F/S/0:V. 



200 



Their winding-sheet the blvfidy day, 

Their graves are growing green to see ; 
And by them lies the dearest lad 

That ever blest a woman's ee ! 
Kbw wae to thee, thou cruel lord, 

A bluidy man I trow thou be ; 
For monie a heart thou hast made sair, 

That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee. 



A RED, RED ROSE. 
Tune — ' Wishait^ s favourite* 

O, MY luve's like a red, red rose, 
That's newly sprung in June ; 

0, my luve 's like the melodie 
That's sweetly play'd in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonie lass. 

So deep in luve am I : 
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 

Till a' the seas gang dry 

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, 
And the rocks melt v/i' the sun ; 

I will luve thee still, my dear, 
While the sands o' life shall run. 

And fare thee weel, my only luve, 
And fare thee weel awhile ! 

And I will come again, my luve, 
Tho' it were ten thousand mile. 



0, WAT YE WHA'S IN YON 

TOWN ? 

Tune—' The bonie Lass in yon town.* 

O, WAT ye wha's in yon town, 
Ye see the e'enin sun upon ? 

The fairest dame's in yon town. 
That e'enin sun is shining on. 

Now haply down yon gay green shaw. 
She wanders by yon spreading tree : 

How blest, ye flow'rs that round her 
blaw, 
Ye catch the glances o' her e'e ! 

How blest, ye birds that round her sing, 
And welcome in the blooming year, 

And doubly welcome Ije the spring, 
The season to my Lucy dear J 



The sun blinks blithe on yon towi;, 
And on yon bonie braes of Ayr ; 

But my delight in yon town. 
And dearest bliss, is Lucy fair. 

Without my love, not a' the chaims 
O' Paradise could yield me joy ; 

But gie me Lucy in my arms. 
And wel»ome Lapland's dreary sky. 

My cave wad be a lover's bower, 
Tho' raging winter rent the air ; 

And she a lovely little flower. 
That I wad tent and shelter there. 

sweet is she in yon town. 

Yon sinkin sun's gane down upon j 
A fairer than's in yon town, 

His setting beam ne'er slione upon. 

If angry fate is sworn my foe, 
And suffering I am doom'd to bear ; 

1 careless quit all else below, 

But spare me, spare me Lucy dear. 

For while life's dearest blood is warm, 
Ae thought frae her shall ne'er depart, 

And she — as fairest is her form. 
She has the truest, kindest heart. 



A VISION. 

Tune—* Cvmnock Psalms.' 

As I stood by yon roofless tower. 
Where the wa' flower scents the dewy 
air. 
Where the howlet mourns in her ivy 
bower, 
And tells the midnight moon her care ; 

CHORUS. 

A lassie, all alone was making her moan. 
Lamenting our lads beyond the sea : 

In the bluidy wars they fa', and our 
honour's gane an' a', 
And broken-hearted we maun die. 

The winds were laid, the air was still, 
The stars they shot alang the sky ; 

The fox was howling on the hill, 
And the distant-echoing glens reply. 



iiQ 



yoCKEY'S TA'EM THE PARTING KISS. 



The stream, adovvn its hazelly path. 
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's. 

Hasting to join the sweeping Nith, 
Whase distant roarings swell and fa's. 

Thecauld blue north was streaming forth 
Her lights, wi' hissing, eerie din ; 

Athort the lift they start and shiit, 
Like fortune's favours, tint as win. 

By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes, 
And, by the moonbeam, shook to see 

A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, 
Attir'd as minstrels wont to be. 

Had I a statue been o*^ stane, 
His darin look had daunted me . 

And on his bonnet grav'd was plain 
The sacred posy — Libertie ! 

And frae his harp sic strains did flow. 
Might rous'd the slumbering dead to 
hear ; 

But oh, it was a tale of woe, 
As ever met a Briton's ear ! 

He sang wi' joy his former day. 
He weeping wail'd his latter times ; 

But what he said it was nae play, 
I winna venture't in my rhymes. 



O, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD 
BLAST. 

Ti'NE — ' TJtc Lass 0/ Livingstone.' 

O, WERT thou in the cauld blast, 

On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
My plaidie to the angry airt, 

I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee. 
Or did misfortune's bitter storms 

Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
Thy bield should be my bosom, 

To share it a', to share it a'. 

Or were Tin the wildest waste, 

Of eartli and air, of earth and air, 
The desart were a paradise. 

If thou wert tliere, if thou wert there. 
Or were I monarch o' the globe, 

Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, 
The only jewel in my crown 

Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. 



THE HIGHLAND^LASSIE. 

Tune — ' The deuks dang o'er my daddy.' 

Nae gentle dames, tho' e'er sae fair, 
Shall ever be my Muse's care ; 
Their titles a' are empty show ; 
Gie me my Highland lassie, O. 

CHORUS. 

Within the glen sae bushy, O, 
Aboon the plain sae rushy, O, 
I set me down wd' right good M'ill 
To sing my Highland lassie, O. 

Oh, were yon hills and valleys mine. 
Yon palace and yon gardens fine ! 
The world then the love should know 
I bear my Highland lassie, O, 
Within the glen, &c. 

But fickle fortune frowns on me. 
And I maun cross the raging sea ; 
But v/hile my crimson cun-ents flow 
I'll love my Highland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, &c. 

Altho* thro* foreign climes I range, 
I know her heart will never change, 
For her bosom burns with honour's glow. 
My faithful Highland lassie, O. 
Within tlie glen, &c. 

For her I'll dare the billow's roar, 
For her I'll trace a distant shore. 
That Indian wealth may lustre throw 
Around my Higliland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, &c. 

Slie has ray heart, she has my hand. 
By sacred truth and honour's band ! 
Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low, 
I'm thine, my Highland lassie, O.! 

Fareweel the glen sae bushy, O ! 
Farewecl the plain sae rushy, O ! 
To other lands I now must go, 
To sing my Highland lassie, O ! 

JOCKEY'S TA'EN THE PART- 
ING KISS. 

JockeV 's ta'en the parting kiss. 
O'er the mountains he is gane ; 

And with him is a' my bliss, 

Nought but griefs with me remain. 



BONIE ANN. 



?ir 



Spare my luve, ye winds that blaw, 
Plashy sleets and beating rain ! 

Spare my luve, thou feathery snaw, 
Drifting o'er the frozen plain ! 

When the shades of evening creep 
O'er the day's fair, gladsome ee, 

Sound and safely may he sleep. 
Sweetly blithe his waukening be \ 

lie will think on her he loves, 
Fondly he'll repeat her name ; 

For where'er he distant roves, 
Jockey's heart is still at hame. 

PEGGY'S CHARMS. 

My Peggy's face, my Peggy's form, 
The frost of hermit age might warm ; 
My Peggy's worth, my Peggy's mind, 
Might charm the first of human kind. 
I love my Peggy's angel air. 
Her face so truly, heavenly fair. 
Her native grace so void of art ; 
Dut I adore my Peggy's heart. 

The lily's hue, the rose's dye, 
The kindling lustre of an eye ; 
Who but owns their magic sway, 
Who but knows they all decay ! 
The tender thrill, the pitying tear, 
The generous purpose, nobly dear. 
The gentle look that r.ige disarms. 
These are all immortal charms. 

UP IN THE MORNING EARLY. 

CHORUS. 

Up in the morning's no for me. 
Up in the morning early ; 

When a' the hills are cover'd wi' snaw, 
I'm sure it's winter fairly. 

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west. 

The drift is driving sairly ; 
Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast, 

I'm sure it's winter fairly. 

The birds sit chittering in the thorn, 
A' day they fare but sparely ; 

And lang's the night frae e'en to morn, 
I'm sure it's winter fairly. 
iJp in the morning, &c. 



THO' CRUEL FATE. 

Tho' cruel fate should bid us part. 

As far's the pole and line; 
Her dear idea round my heart 

Should tenderly entwine. 

Tho' mountains frown and deserts howl. 

And oceans roar between ; 
Yet, dearer than my deathless soul, 

I stiil would love my Jean. 



I DREAM'D I LAY WHERE 
FLOWERS WERE SPRINGING. 

I dream'd I lay where flowers were 
springmg 

Gaily in the sunny beam ; 
List'ning to the wild birds singing, 

By a falling, crystal stream : 
Straight the sky grew black and daring ; 

Thro' the woods the whirlwinds rave ; 
Trees with aged arms were warring, 

O'er the swelling, drumlie wave. 

Such was my life's deceitful morning, 

Such the pleasures I enjoy 'd ; 
But lang or noon, loud tempests storming 

A' my flowery bliss destroy'd. 
Tho' fickle fortune has deceiv'd me. 

She promis'd fair, and perform'd but ill ; 
Of monie a joy and hope bereav'd me, 

I bear a heart shall support me still. 

BONIE ANN. 

Ye gallants bright, I red you right, 

Beware o' bonie Ann : 
Her comely face sae fu' o' grace, 

Your heart she will trepan. 
Her ecn sac bright, like stars by night, 

Her skin i? like the swan ; 
Sae jimpy lac.'d her genty waist. 

That sweetly ye might span. 

Youth, grace, and love, attendant move, 

And pleasure leads the van ; 
In a' their charms, and concincring arms, 

They wait on bonie Ann. 
The captive bands may chain the hands. 

But love enslav«?s tho man : 
\'e gallants hniw, I red you a*. 

Beware o' bonie Ann. 

9 a 



212 



THERE'S A YOUTH IN THIS CITY. 



MY BONIE MARY. 



Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, 

An' fill it in a silver tassie,; 
That I may drink before I go, 

A service to my bonie lassie. 
The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith ; 

Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry; 
The ship rides by the Berwick-law, 

And I maun leave my bonie Mary. 



The trumpets sound, the banners fly, 

The glittering spears are ranked ready; 
The shouts o' war are heard afar. 

The battle closes thick and bloody ; 
But it's no the roar o' sea or shore 

Wad mak me langer wish to tarry s 
Nor shout o' war that's heard afar. 

It's leaving thee, my bonie Mary. 



MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS. 

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; 
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; 
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, 
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 
Farev/ell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, 
The birth-place of valour, the country of worth ; 
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, 
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. 

Farev/ell to the mountains high cover'd with snow ; 
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below ; 
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods ; 
Farewell, to tlie torrents and loud-pouring floods. 
My heart's in the Highlands,-my heart is not here ; 
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; 
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe. 
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go, 

THERE'S A YOUTH IN THIS CITY 

Tune — * Neil Cow's lament.' 

There's a youth in this city, it were a great pify, 

That he from our lasses should wander awa ; 
For he's bonie and braw, weel favour'd witha', 

And his hair has a natural buckle and a*. 
His coat is the hue of his bonnet sae blue ; 

His fecket is white as the new-driven snaw ; 
His hose they are blae, and his shoon like the slae, 

And his clear siller iDuckles they dazzle us a'. 
His coat is the hue, &c. 

For beauty and fortune the laddie 's been courlin ; 

Weel-featur'd, weel- tocher 'd, weel-mounted and braw ; 
But chiefly the siller, that gars him gang till her, 

The pennie's the jewel that beautifies a'. 
There's Meg wi' the mailin, that fain wad a haen him, 

And Susy whase daddy was Laird o' the ha' ; 
There's lang-tocher'd Nancy maist fetters his fancy, 

—But the laddie's dear sel he lo'e:i dearest of a'. 



VOM WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS. 



its 



THE RANTIN DOG THE 
DADDIE O'T. 

TuNK—' £:asi nobk o Fife.' 

O WHA my babie-clouts will buy \ 
Wha will tent me when I cry ? 
Wha will kiss me whare I lie ? 
The rantin dog the daddie o't. 

fVha will own he did the faut ? 
Wha will buy my groanin maut ? 
Wha will tell me how to ca't ? 
The rantin dog the daddie p't. 

When I mount the creepie-chair, 
•Wha will sit beside me there? 
Gie me Rob, I seek nae mair, 
The rantin dog the daddie o't. 

Wha will crack to me my lane ? 
Wha will mak me fidgin fain ? 
W^ha will kiss me o'er again ? 
The rantin dog the daddie o't. 



I DO CONFESS THOU ART SAE 
FAIR. 

I DO confess thou art sae fair, 
I wad been o'er the lugs in luve ; 

Had I not found the slightest prayer 
That lips could speak, thy heart 
could muve. 

I do confess thee sweet, but find 
Thou art sae thriftless o' thy sweets, 

Thy favours are the silly wind , 
That kisses ilka thing it meets. 

See yonder rose-bud rich in dew, 
Amang its native briers sae coy, 

How soon it tines its scentand hue 
When pu'd and worn a common toy ! 

Sic fate ere lang shall thee betide, 
Tho' thou may gaily bloom a while ; 

Yet soon thou shalt be thrown aside, 
Like onie common weed and vile. 



YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS. 

Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide^ 
That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde, 
Where the grouse lead their coveys thro' the heather to feed, 
And the shepherd tents his flock as he pipes on his reed : 
Where the grouse, &c. 

Not Cowrie's rich valley, nor Forth's sunny shores. 
To me hae the charms o' yon wild mossy moors ; 
For there, by a lanely, sequester'd clear stream. 
Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream. 

Amang thae wild mountains shall still be my path. 
Ilk stream foaming down its ain green narrow strath ; 
For there, wi' rny lassie,. the day lang I rove, 
While o'er us unheeded fly the. swift hours o' love, 

She is not the fairest, altho' she is fair ; 
O' nice education but sma' is her share ; 
Her parentage humble as humble can be , 
But I lo'e tlie dear lassie because she lo'es me. 

To beauty what man but maun yield him a prize, 
In her armour of glances, and blushes, and sighs ? 
And when wit and refinement hae poh'sh'd her dax'ts, 
They dazzle our een, as they fly to our hearts. 

But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond sparkling ee, 
Has lustre outshining the diamond to mc ; 
And the heart-beating love,, as I'm clasp'd in her arms, 
O, these arc my l.issic's all -conquering charms ! 



214 



OUT OVER THE FORTH. 



WHA IS THAT AT MY BOWER 
DOOR? 

Wha is that at my bower door ? 

O wha is it but Pindlay ; 
Then gae your gate, ye'se nae be here ! 

Indeed maun I, quo' Findlay. 
What mak ye sae Uke a thief? 

O come and see, quo' Findlay ; 
Before the mom ye'll work mischief ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 

Gif I rise and let you in ; 

Let me in, quo' Findlay ; 
Ye'll keep me waukin wi' your din ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 
In my bower if ye should stay ; 

Let me stay, quo' Findlay ; 
I fear ye'll bide till break o' day ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 

Here this night if ye remain ; 

I'll remain, quo' Findlay ; 
I dread ye'll learn the gate again j" 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 
What may pass within this bower — 

Let it pass, quo' Findlay ; 
Ye maun conceal till your last hour ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 

PAREWELL TO NANCY. 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ! 
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever ! 
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 
Who shall say that fortune grieves him 
While the star of hope she leaves hhn ? 
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights. me, 
Dark despair around benights me. 

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, 
Nae thing could resist my Nancy ; 
But to see her, was to love her ; 
Love but her, and love for ever. 
Had we never lov'd sae kindly. 
Had we never lov'd sae blindly. 
Never met — or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken hearted. 

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest ! 
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest ! 
Thine be ilka joy and treasure, 
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure. 



Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 
Ae fareweel, alas, for evfer ! 
Deep in heart-wrung tears I pledge thee. 
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 

THE BONIE BLINK O' 
MARY'S EE. 

Now bank an' brae are claith'd in green, 

An' scatter'd cov/slips sweetly spring, 
By Girvan's faiiy haunted stream 

The birdies flit on wanton wing. 
To Cassillis' banks when e'ening fa's, 

There wi' my Mary let me flee, 
There catch her ilka glance o' love, 

The bonie blink o' Mary's ee ! 

The chield wha boasts o' warld's wealth, 

Is aften laird o' meikle care ; 
But Mary she is a' my ain, 

Ah, fortune canna gie me mair ! 
Then let me range by Cassillis' banks 

Wi' her the lassie dear to me. 
And catch her ilka glance o' love. 

The bonie blink o' Mary's ee ! 

OUT OVER THE FORTH. 

Out over the Forth I look to the north, 
But what is the north and its High- 
lands to me ? 
The south nor the east gie ease to my 
breast. 
The far foreign land, or the wild 
rolling sea. 

But I look to the west, when I gae to 
rest. 
That happy my dreams and my 
slumbers may be ; 
For far in the west lives he I lo'e best, 
The lad that is dear to my babie and 
me. 

THE BONIE LAD THAT'S FAR 

AWAY. 

Tune — ' Owre the Jails aud/ar away.' 

O HOW can I be blithe and glad. 
Or how can I gang brisk and bra\V, 

When the bonie lad that I lo'e best 
Is o'er the hills and far awa? 



BANKS OF DEVON. 



215 



It's no the frosty winter wind, 

It's no the driving drift and snaw ; 

But ay the tear comes in my ee, 
To think on him that's far awa. 

My father pat me frae his door, 

My friends they hae disown'd me a' 

But I hae ane will tak my part, 
The bonie lad that's far awa. 

A pair o* gloves he gae to me, 

And silken snoods he gae me twa ; 

And I will wear them for his sake, 
The bonie lad that's far awa. 

The weary winter soon will pass. 
And spring will deed the birken- 
shaw : 

And my sweet babie will be born. 
And he'll came hame that's far awa. 



THE GOWDEN LOCKS 

OF ANNA, 

Tune — * Banks of Banna.* 

Yestreen I had a pint o' wine, 
A place where body saw na' ; 

Yestreen lay on this breast o' mine 
The gowden locks of Anna. 



The hungry Jew in wilderness. 

Rejoicing o'er his manna, 
Was naething to my hinny bliss 

Upon the lips of Annau 

Ye monarchs, tak the east ^nd west, 

Frae Indus to Savannah ! 
Gie me within my straining grasp 

The melting form of Anna. 
There I'll despise imperial charms, 

An Empress or Sultana, 
While dying raptures in her arms, 

I give and take with Anna ! 

Awa, thou flaunting god o' day ! 

Awa, thou pale Diana ! 
Ilk star gae hide thy twinkling ray 

When I'm to meet my Anna. 
Come, in thy raven plumage, night, 

Sun, moon, and stars withdrawn a' ; 
And bring an angel pen to write 

My transports wi' my Anna ! 

POSTSCRIPT. 

The kirk and state ftiay join, and tell 

To do such things I mauna : 
The kirk and state may gae to hell. 

And I'll gae to my Anna. 
She is the sunshine o' my ee, 

To live but her I canna ; 
Had I on earth but wishes three, 

The first should be my Anna. 



BANKS OF DEVON. 

How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, 

With green-spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair ! 

But the boniest flower on the banks of the Devon 
Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr. 

Mild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower, 
In the gay rosy morn as it bathes in the dew ! 

And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower, 
That steals on the evening each leaf to renew. 

O, spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes, 
With chill hoary wing as ye usher the dawn \ 

And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes 
The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn ! 

Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies, 

And England triumphant display her proud rose ; 

A fairer than cither adorns the green valleys 
Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows. 



2l6 



THE DE'IVS AW A WP THE EXCISEMAN. 



ADOWN WINDING NITH. 

Tune — * The muckino^ Geordie's byre.' 

Adown winding Nith I did wander, 
To mark the sweet flowers as they 
spring ; 

Adown winding Nith I did wander, 
Of Phillis to muse and to sing. 

CHORUS. 

A wa wi' jour belles and your beauties, 
They never wi' her can comJ3are ; 

Whaever has met wi' my Phillis, 
Has met wi' the queen o' the fair. 

The daisy amus'd my fond fancy, 
.So artless, so simple, so wild ; 

Thou emblem-, said I, o' my Phillis, 
For she is Simplicity's child. 
Awa, &c. 

The rose-bud's the blush o' ray charmer, 
Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest : 

How fair and how pure is the lily, 
But fairer and purer her breast. 
Awa, &c. 

Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour. 
They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie : 

Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine. 
Its dew-drop o' diamond, her eye. 
Awa, &c. 

Her voice is the song of the morning 
That wakes through the green-spread- 
ing grove 
When Phoebus peeps over tlie mountains. 
On miusic, and pleasure, and love. 
Awa, &c. 

But beauty how frail and how fleeting, 
The bloom of a fine summer's day ! 

While worth in the mind o' my Phillis 
Will flourish without a decay. 
Awa, &c. 

STREAMS THAT GLIDE. 

Tune— '^(3r«^.' 

Streams that glide in orient plains. 
Never bound by winter's chains ! 
Glowing here on golden sands, 
There commix'd with foulest stains 
From tyranny's empurpled bands : 



These, their richly-gleaming waves, 
I leave to tyrants and their slaves ; 
Give me the stream that sweetly laves 
The banks by Castle Gordon. 

Spicy forests, ever gay, 
Shading from the burning ray 
Hapless wretches sold to toil, 
Or the ruthless native's way, 
Bent on slaughter, blood,~ and spoil : 
Woods that ever verdant wave, 
I leave the tyrant and the slave. 
Give me the groves that lofty brave 
The stoniis, by Castle Gordon. 

Wildly here without control. 
Nature reigns and rules the whole ; 
In that sober pensive mood. 
Dearest to the feeling soul,^ 
She plants the forest, pours the flood j 
Life's poor day I'll musing rave. 
And find at night a sheltering cave. 
Where waters flow and wild woods wave, 
By bonie Castle Gordon. 



THE DE'IL'S AWA' WI' THE 
EXCISEMAN. 

The De'il cam fiddling thro' the town, 
And danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman ; 

And ilka wife cry'd ' Auld Mahoun, 
We wish you luck o' your prize, man. 

* We'll mak our maut, and brew our 
drink, 
We'll dance, and sing, and rejoice, 
man ; 
And monie thanks to the muckle 
black De'il 
That danc'd awa wi' the Excise- 
man. 

* There's threesome reels, and foursome 
reels, 
There's hornpipes and strathspeys, 
man ; 
But the ae best dance e'er cam to our Ian', 
Was — the De'il's awa wi' the Excise- 
man. 
We'll mak our maut,' &c 



WHERE ARE THE JO VS. 



2fJ 



BLITHE HAE I BEEN ON YON 
HILL. 

Tl'NE — Ltggerum cask.' 

Blithe hae I been on yon hill, 

As the Iambs before me ; 
Careless ilka thought and free, 

As the breeze flew o'er me : 
Now nae langer sport and play, 

Mirth or sang can please me ; 
Lesley is sae fair and coy, 

Care and anguish seize me. 

Heavy, heavy is the task. 

Hopeless love declaring ; 
Trembling, I dow nocht but glowr, 

Sighing, dumb, despairing ! 
If slie winna ease the thraws 
' In my bosom swelling, 
Underneath the grass-green sod 

Soon maun be my dwelling. 



O WERE MY LOVE YON 
^LILAC FAIR. 

TuNTE— '//w^A/V Graham.^ 

O WERE my love yon lilac fair, 

Wi' purple blossoms to the spring ; 

And I, a binl to shelter there, 
When wearied on my little wing ; 

How I wad rnourn, when it was torn 
By autumn wild, and winter rude ! 



But I wad sing on wanton wing. 

When youthfu May its bloom re- 
new'd. 

O gin my love were yon red rose 
That grows upon the castle wa*, 

And I mysel' a drap o' dew. 
Into her bonie breast to fa' ! 

Oh, there beyond expression blest, 
I'd feast on beauty a' the night ; 

Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest. 
Till Mey'd awa' by Phoebus' light. 



COME, LET ME TAKE THEE. 

Tun e — ' Ca uld kail. ' 

Come, let me take thee to my breast. 

And pledge we ne'er shall sunder ; 
And I shall spurn as vilest dust 

The warld's wealth and grandeur : 
And do I hear my Jeanie own 

That equal transports move her ? 
I ask for dearest life alone 

That I may live to love her. 

Thus in my arms, wi' all thy charms, 

I clasp my countless treasure ; 
I'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share. 

Than sic a moment's pleasure : 
And by thy een, sae bonie blue, 

I swear I'm thine for ever ! 
And on thy lips I seal my vow. 

And break it shall I never. 



WHERE ARE THE JOYS. 

Tune — ' Sniv yc nty Father V 

Where are the joys I have met in the morning. 
That danc'd to the lark's early sang ? 

Where is the peace that awaited my wand'ring, 
At evening the wild woods amang? 

No more a-winding the course of yon river, 
And marking sweet flow' rets so fair : 

No more I trace the light footsteps of pleasure, 
But sorrow and sad sighing care. 



2l8 



MY CHLORIS. 



Is it that summer's forsaken our valleys, 

And grim, surly winter is near ? 
Noi no, the bees humming round the gay roses, 

Proclaim it the pride of the year. 

Fain would I hide what I fear to discover, 
Yet long, long too well have I known : 

All that has caus'd this wreck in my bosom, 
Is Jenny, fair Jenny alone. 

Time caimot aid me, my griefs are immortal, 

Nor hope dare a comfort bestow : 
Come, then, enamour'd and fond of my anguish, 

Enjoyment I'll seek in my woe. 



O SAW YE MY DEAR. 

Tune — ' When she cam ben she bobbit.' 

O SAW ye my dear, my Phely ? 
O saw ye my dear, my Phely ? 
She's down i' the grove, she's wi' a new 
love, 
She winna come hame to her Willy. 

What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? 

What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? 

She lets thee to wit that she has thee 

forgot, 

And for ever disowns thee her Willy. 

O had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! 
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! 
As light as the air, and fause as thou's 
fair, 
Thou'st broken the heart o' thy Willy. 



THOU HAST LEFT ME EVER, 

JAMIE. 

TvtiV.—'Fee him, father.* 

Thou hast left me ever, Jamie, 

Thou hast left me ever ; 
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie, 

Thou hast left me ever, 
Aften hast thou vow'd that death 

Only should us sever ; 
Now thou'st left thy lass for aye — 

I maun see thee never, Jamie,. 
I'll see thee never ! 



Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie, 

Thou hast me forsaken ; 
Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie, 

Thou hast me forsaken. 
Thou canst love anither jo, 

While my heart is breaking ; 
Soon my weary een I'll close — 

Never mair to waken, Jamie, 
Ne'er mair to waken ! . 



MY CHLORIS. 
Tune — *My lodging is on the cold ground.' 

My Chloris, mark how green the groves, 
The primrose banks how fair ; 

The balmy gales awake the flowers, 
And wave thy flaxen hair. 

The lav'rock shuns the palace gay, 
And o'er the cottage sings : 

For Nature smiles as sweet, I ween, 
To shepherds as to kings. 

Let minstrels sweep the skilfu' string 

In lordly lighted ha' : 
The shepherd stops his simple reed, 

Blythe, in the birken shaw. 

The princely revel may survey 
Our iiistic dance wi' scorn ; 

But are their hearts as light as our* 
Beneath the milk-white thorn ? 



PHILLY. 



219 



The shepherd, in the flowery glen, 
In shepherd's phrase will woo : 

The courtier tells a finer tale, 
But is his heart as true ? 

These wild-wood flowers I've pu'd, to 
deck 

That spotless breast 0' thine : 
The courtier's gems may witness love — 

But 'tis na love like mine. 



CHARMING MONTH OF MAY. 

Tune — ' Dainty Davie. 

It was the charming month of May, 
When all the flowers were fresh and gay, 
One morning, by the break of day, 
The youthful, charming Chloe ; 

From peaceful slumber she arose, 
Girt on her mantle and her hose, 
And o'er the flowery mead she goes, 
The ybuthful, charming Chloe. 

CHORUS. 

Lovely was she by the dawn, 

Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe, 

Tripping o'er the pearly lawn. 
The youthful, charming Chloe. 

The feather'd people you might see 
Perch'd all around on every tree. 
In notes of sweetest melody 
They hail the charming Chloe ; 

Till, painting gay the eastern skies. 
The glorious sun began to rise, 
Out-rival'd by the radiant eyes 
Of youthful, charming Chloe. 
l-..ovely was she, &c. 



LKT NOT WOMAN K'KR 

COMPLAIN. 

Tune — 'Duncan Gray.' 

Lkt not woman e'er complain 
Of inconstancy in love ; 

Let not woman e'er complain, 
I'ickle man is apt to rove : 



Look abroad through Nature's range. 
Nature's mighty law is change ; 

Ladies, would it not be strange, 
Man should then a monster prove ? 

Mark the winds, and mark the skies ; 

Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow : 
Sun and moon but set to rise, 

Round and round the seasons go. 

Why then ask of silly man, 
To oppose great Nature's plan ? 

We'll be constant while we can — 
You can be no more, you know. 



O PHILLY. 

Tune — ' The sow's tai*.' 

HE. 

O Philly, happy be that day 
When, roving thro' the gather'd hay, 
My youthfu' heart was stown away, 
And by thy charms, my Philly. 

SHE. 

O Willy, aye I bless the grove 
Where first I own'd my maiden love, 
Whilst thou didst pledge the Powers 
abova 
To be my ain dear Willy. 

HE. 

As songsters of the early year 
Are ilka day mair sweet to hear, 
So ilka day to me mair dear 
And charming is my Philly, 

SHE. 

As on the brier the budding rose 
Still richer breathes and fairer blows, 
So in niy tender bosom grows 
The love I bear my Willy. 

HE. 

The milder sun and bluer sky, 
That crown my harvest cares wi' joy, 
Were ne'er sae welcome to my eye 
As is a sight o' Philly. 



220 



yOHN BARLEYCORN, 



SHE. 

The little swallow's wanton wing, 
Tho' wafting o'er the flowery spring, 
Did ne'er to me sic tidings bring 
,As meeting o' my Wrlly. 



HE. 



The bee that thro' the sunny hour 
Sips nectar in the opening flower, 
Compar'd wi' my delight is poor, 
•Upon the lips o' Philly. 



SHE. 

The woodbine in the dewy weet 
When evening shades in silence meet 
Is nocht sae fragrant or sae sweet 
As is a kiss o' Willy. 

HE. 
Let fortune's wheel at random rin. 
And fools may tyne, and knaves may 

Avinj 
My thoughts are a' bound up in ane, 
And that's my ain dear Philly. 

SHE. 

What's a' the joys than gowd can gie I 
I care na wealth a single flie ; 
The lad I love 's the lad for me, 
And that's my ain dear Willy, 

JOHN BARLEYCORN. 

A BALLAD. ' 

There was three Kings into the east, ' 
Three Kings both great and high, 

And they hae sworn a solemn oath 
John Barleycorn should die. 

They took a plough and |)lough'd him 
down, 

Put clods upon his head, 
And they hae sworn a solemn oath 

John Barleycorn was dead. 

But the cheerfu' Spring came kindly on, 
And show'rs began to fall ; 

John Barleycorn got up again, 
And sore surpris'd them all. 

Tiie sultry suns of Summer came, 
And he grew thick and strong, 

His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears, 
That no one should him wrong. 



The sober Autumn enter'd mild, 
When he grew wan and pale ; 

His bending joints and drooping head 
Show'd he began to fail. 

His colour sicken'd more and more, 

He faded into age ; 
And then his enemies began 

To shew their deadly rage. 

They've ta'en a weapon, long and sharp, 

And cut him by the knee ; 
Then tied hirri fast upon a cart, 

Like a rogue for forgerie. 

They laid him down upon his back, 
And cudgell'd him full sore ; 

They hung him up before the storm. 
And turn'd him o'er and o'er. 

They filled up a darksome pit^ 

With water to the brim, 
Tliey heaved \x\ John Barleycorn, 

There let him sink or swim. 

They l^d him out upon the floor, 

To work him farther woe, 
And still, as signs of life appear'd,. 

They toss'd him to and fro. 

They wasted, o'er a scorching flame, 

The marrow of his bones ; 
But a miller us'd him worst of all. 

For he crush'd him between two stones 

And they hae ta'en his very heart's blood, 
And drank it round and round ; 

And still the more and more they drank, 
Their joy did more abound. 

John Barleycorn was a hero bold, 

Of noble enterprise, 
For if you do but taste his blood, 

'Twill make your courage rise ; 

Twill make a man forget his woe ; 

'Twill heighten all his joy : 
'Twill make the wide v's heart to sing, 

Tho' the tear were in her eye. 

Then let us toast John Barleycorn, 

Each man a glass in hand ; 
And may his great posterity 

Ne'er fail in old Scotland I 



WHEN GUILFORD GOOD OUR PILOT STOOD. 



22 r 



CANST THOU LEAVE ME THUS? 

Tv^v.—' Roys Wife. 

Canst thou leave me thus, rt^iy Katy ? 
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? 
Well thou know'st my aching heart, 
And canst thou leave me thus for pity? 

Is this thy plighted, fond regard. 
Thus cruelly to part, my Katy ? 

Is this thy faithful swain's reward — 
An aching, broken heart, my Katy ? 
Canst thou, &c. 

Farewell ! and ne'er such sorrows tear 
That fickle heart of thine, my Katy ! 
Thou may'st find those will love thee 
dear — 
But not a love like mine, my Katy. 
Canst thou, &c. 



ON CHLORIS BEING ILL. 

TuNB — ' Aye waukin o.' 

Long, long the night, 

Heavy comes the morrow, 

While my soul's delight 
Is on her bed of sorrow. 

Can I cease to care, 
Can I cease to languish. 

While my darling fair 

Is' on the couch of anguish? 
Long, &c. 

Every hope is fled. 

Every fear is terror ; 
Slumber e'en 1 dread, 

Every dream is horror. 
Long, &c. 

Hear me, Pow'rs divine ? 

Oh, in pity hear me ! 
Take aught else of mine. 

But my Chleris spare me ! 
Long, &c. 



WHEN GUILFORD GOOD OUR 
PILOT STOOD. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Tune — ' Gillicrankie.' 

When Guilford good our Pilot stood. 

An' did our hellim thraw, man, 
Ae night, at tea, began a plea. 

Within America, man : 
Then up they gat the maskin-pat. 

And in the sea did jaw, man ; 
An' did nae less, in full Congress, 

Than quite refuse our law, man. 

Then thro' the lakes Montgomery takes, 

I wat he was na slaw, man ; 
Down Lowrie's burn he took a turn. 

And Carleton did ca', man : 
But yet, what-reck, he, at Quebec, 

Montgomery-like did fa', man, 
Wi' sword in hand, before his band, 

Amang his en'mies a', man. 

Poor Tammy Gage, within a cage 

Was kept at Boston ha', man ; 
Till Willie Howe took o'er the knowe 

For Philadelphia, man : 
Wi' sword an' gun he thought a sin 

Guid Christian bluid to draw, man ; 
But at New York, wi' knife an' fork, 

Sir Loin he hacked sma', man. 

Burgoyne gaed up, like spur an' whip, 

Till Eraser brave did fa', man ; 
Then lost his way, ae misty day, 

In Saratoga shaw, man. 
Cornwallis fought as lang's he dought, 

An' did the Buckskins claw, man ; 
But Clinton's glaive frae rust to save. 

He hung it to the wa', man. 



Then Montague, an' Guilford too. 

Began to fear a fa', man ; 
And Sackville doure, wha stood 
stoure. 

The German Chief to thraw, man 
For Paddy Burke, like ony Turk, 

Nae mercy had at a', man ; 
An' Charlie Fox thriw by the box. 

An' Ibws'd his tinkler jaw, man. 



the 



tli 



FAREWELL TO ELIZA. 



Then Rockingham took up the game ; 

Till death did on him ca', man ; 
WhenShelburne meek held up his cheek, 

Conform to gospel law, man ; 
Saint Stephen's boys, wi' jarring noise, 

They did his measures thraw, man. 
For North an' Fox united stocks. 

An' bore him to the. wa', man. 

Then Clubs an' Hearts were Charlie's 
, cartes, 

He swept the stakes awa', man, 
Till the Diamond's Ace, of Indian race. 

Led him a %^\x fmix pas, man : 
The Saxon lads, wi' loud placads, 

On Chatham's boy did ca', man ; 
An' Scotland drew her pipe, an' blew, 

' Up, Willie, waur them a', man ! ' 

Behind the throne then Grenville 's gone, 

A secret word or twa, man ; 
While slee Dundas arous'd the class 

Be-north the Roman wa', man : 
An' Chatham's wraith, in heavenly graith, 

(Inspired Bardies saw, man,) 
Wi' kindling eyes cry'd, 'Willie, rise ! 

Would I hae fear'd them a', man ? ' 

But, word an' blow, North, Fox, and Co. 

Gowff'd Willie like a ba'j man, 
Till Suthron raise, an' coost their claise 

Behind him in a raw, man ; 
An' Caledon threw by the drone, 

An' did her whittle draw, man ; 
An' swoor fu' rude, thro' dirt an' blood, 

To make it guid in law, man. 



THE RIGS O' BARLEY. 

Ti'NE — ' Corn rigs are bonie.' 

It was upon a Lammas night, 

When corn rigs are bonie, 
Beneath the moon's unclouded light, 

I held awa to Annie : 
The time flew by, wi' tentless heed, 

Till 'tween the late and early, 
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed, 

To see me thro' the barley. 



The sky was blue, the wind was still, 

The moon was shining clearly ; 
I set her down, wi' right good will, 

Amang the rigs o' barley ; 
I ken't her heart was a' my ain ; 

1 lov'd her most sincerely ; 
I kiss'd her owre and owre again 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 

I lock'd her in my fond embrace ; 

Her heart was beating rarely ; . 
My blessings on that happy place, 

Amang the rigs o' barley ! 
But by the moon and stars so bright. 

That shone that hour so clearly ! 
She ay shall bless that happy night 

Amang the rigs o' barley, 

I hae been blythe wi' comrades deaf ; 

I hae been merry drinking"; 
L hae been joyfu' gath'rin gear ; 

I hae been happy thinking : 
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, 

Tho' three times doubl'd fairly, 
That happy night was worth them a', 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 

CHORUS. 

Corii rigs, an' barley rigs. 

An' corn rigs are bonie : 
I 'II ne'er forget that happy night, 

Amang the rigs wi' Annie. 

FAREWELL TO ELIZA. 

Tune — ' Gilderoy? 

From thee, Eliza, I must go. 

And from my native shore ; 
The cruel fates between us throw 

A boundless ocean's roar : 
But boundless oceans, roaring wide, 

Between my Love and me, 
They never, never can divide 

My heart and soul from thee. 

Farewell, farewell, Eliza dear, 

The maid that I adore ! 
A boding voice is in mine ear, 

We part to meet no more ! 
But the last throb that leaves my heart, 

While death stands victor by. 
That throb, Eliza, is thy part, 

And thine that latest sigh ! 



NOiV WESTLIM wmDS, 



223 



MY NANIE, O. 

Behind yon hills wliere Stinchar flows, 
'Mang moors an' mosses many, O, 

The wintry sun the day has clos'd, 
And I'll awa' to Nanie, O. 

The westlin wind blaws loud an' shill ; 

The night 's baith mirk and rainy, O ; 
But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal, 

An' owre the hill to Nanie, O. 

My Nanie 's charming, sweet, an' young: 
Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O : 

May ill befa' the flattering tongue 
That wad beguile my Nanie, O. 

Her face is fair, her heart is true, 
As spotless as she's bonie, O : 

The op'ning gowan, wat wi' dew, 
Nae purer is than Nanie, O. 

A country lad is my degree. 

An' few there be that ken me, O ; 

But what care I how few they be, 
I'm welcome aye to Nanie, O. 

My riches a's my penny-fee, 
An' I maun guide it cannie, O 

But warl's gear ne'er troubles me, 
My thoughts are a', my Nanie, O. 

Our auld Guidman delights to view 
H is sheep an' kye thrive bonie, O ; 

But I'm as blythe that hands iiis pleugh, 
An* has nae care but Nanie, O. 

Come weel, come woe, I care na by, 
I'll tak what Keav'n will send me, O; 

Nae ither care in life have I, 
But live, an' love my Nanie, O. 



GREEN GROW THE RASHES. 

A FRAGMENT. 
CHORUS. 

Green grow the rashes, O ; 

Green grow the rashes, O ; 
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend, 

Are spent amang the lasses, O ! 



There's nought but care on ev'ry han'. 
In ev'ry hour that passes, O ; 

What signifies the life o' man. 
An' 'twere na for the lasses, O. 
Green grow, &c. 

The warly race may riches chase. 
An* riches still may fly them, O ; 

An' tho' at last they catch them fast, 
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O. 
Green grow, &c. 

But gie me a canny hour at e'en, 
My arms about my dearie, O ; 

An' warly cares, an' warly men, 
May a' gae tapsalteerie, O ! 
Green grow, &c. 

For you sae douse, ye #neer at this, 
Ye're nought but senseless asses, O : 

The wisest man the warl' saw, 
He dearly lov'd the lasses, O. 
Green grow, &c. 

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears 
Her noblest work she classes, O ; 

Her prentice han' she tried on man, 
An' then she made the lasses, O. 
Green grow, &c. 



NOW WESTLIN WINDS. 

Tune — '/ had a horse, I had nae mair.' 

Now westlin winds and slaught'ring 
guns 
Bring autumn's pleasant weather ; 
The moorcock springs, on whirring 
wings, 
Amang the blooming heather : 
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain, 

Delights the weary farmer ; 
And the moon shines bright, when I 
rove at night 
To muse upon my charmer. 

The partridge loves the fruitful fells ; 

The plover loves the mountains ; 
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells ; 

The soaring hern the fountains : 



224 



THE BIG-BELLIED BOTTLE. 



Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves, 
The path of man to shun it ; 

The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, 
The spreading thorn the linnet. 

Thus eVry kind their pleasure find. 

The savage and the tender ; 
Some social join, and leagues combine; 

Some solitary wander ; 
Avaunt, away ! the cruel sway, 

Tyrannic man's dominion ; 
The sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry, 

The flutt'ring, gory pinion ! 

But, Peggy dear, the ev'ning's clear, 
Thick flies the skimming swallow ; 



The sky is blue, the fields in view, 
All fading-green and yellow ■ 

Come let us stray our gladsome way, 
And view the charms of nature ; 

The rustling corn, the fruited thorn, 
And ev'ry happy creature. 

We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk. 

Till the silent moon shine clearly ; 
I'll grasp thy waist, and, fondly prest, 

Swear how I love thee dearly : 
Not vernal show'rs to budding flow'rs, 

Not autumn to the farmer. 
So dear can be, as thou to me. 

My fair, my lovely charmer !. 



THE BIG-BELLIED BOTTLE. 

VvuK-^' Prepare, my dear, brethren, to the tavern lefsjty' 

No churchman am I for to rail and to write, 
No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight. 
No sly man of business contriving a snare. 
For a big-belly'd bottle 's the whole of my care. 

The peer I don't envy, I give him his bow ; 

I scorn not the peasant, tho' ever so low ; 

But a club of good fellows, like those that are there, 

And a bottle like this, are my gloiy and care. 

Here passes the squire on his brother — his horse ; 
There centum per centum, the cit with his purse ; 
But see you the Crown how it waves in the air, 
There a big-belly'd bottle still eases my care. 

The wife of my bosom, alas ! she did die ; 
For sweet consolation to church I did fly ; 
I found that old Solomon proved it fair. 
That the big-belly'd bottle's a cure for all care. 

I once was persuaded ^ venture to make ; 
A letter inform'd me that all was to v/reck ; 
But the pursy old landlord just waddled up stairs. 
With a glorious bottle that ended my cares. 

'Life's cares they are comforts,' a maxim laid down 
By the bard, what d'ye call him, that wore the black go 
And, faith, I agree with th' old prig to a hair. 
For a big-belly'd bottle's a heav n of a care. 

A STANZA ADDED IN A MASON LODGE, 

Then fill up a bumper, and make it o'erflow. 
And honours masonic prepare for to throw ; 
May every true brother of the compass and square 
Have a big-belly'd bottle when harass'd with care. 



THE FAREWELL 



125 



THE AUTHOR'S FAREWELL TO 
HIS NATIVE COUNTRY. 

Tm-h^—' Roslin Castle.' 

The gloomy night is gath'rirg fast, 
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast, 
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, 
I see it driving o'er the plain ; 
The hunter now has left the moor, 
The scatter'd coveys meet secure. 
While here I wander, prest with care, 
Along the lonely banks of Ayr. 

The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn 
By early Winter's ravage torn ; 
Across her placid, azure sky, 
She sees the scowling tempest fly : 
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave, 
I think upon the stormy wave. 
Where many a danger I must dare, 
Far from, the bonie banks of Ayr. 

'Tis not the surging billow's roar, 
'Tis not that fatal, deadly shore ; 
Tho' death in ev'ry shape appear. 
The wretched have no more to fear : 
,But round my heart the ties are bound. 
That heart transpierc'd . with many a 

wound : 
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear. 
To leave~the bonie banks of Ayr. 

Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales, 
Her heathy moors and winding vales ; 
Tiie scenes where wretched fancy roves, 
Pursuing past, unhappy loves ! 
Farewell, my friends ! Farewell, my 

foes ! 
My peace with these, my love with 

those — 
The bursting tears my heart declare, 
Farewell, the bonie banks of Ayr ! 

THE FAREWELL. 

TO THE BRETHREN OF ST. JAMEs'S LODGE, 
TARBOLTON. 

Tvii^~-' Giiid ni/^ht, and joy be wi' you a' !' 

Adieu ! a heart-warm, fond adieu ! 

Dear brothers of the mystic tie ! 
Ye favour'd, ye enlighten'd k\v, 

Companions of my social joy! 
^ } 



Tho' I to foreign lands must hie. 
Pursuing Fortune's slidd'ry ba', 

With melting heart, and brimful eye,' 
I'll mind you still, tho' far awa'. 

Oft have I met your social band. 

And spent the cheerful, festive night ; 
Oft, honour'd with supreme command, . 

Presided o'er the sons of light : 
And by that hieroglyphic bright. 

Which none but craftsmen ever saw ! 
Strong mem'ry on my heart shall write 

Those happy scenes when far awa' ! 

May freedom, harmony, and love, 

Unite you in the grand design. 
Beneath th' Omniscient eye above, 

The glorious Architect Divine ! 
That you may keep th' unerring line, 

Still rising by the plummet's law, 
Till Order bright, completely shine. 

Shall be my pray'r when far awa'. 

And You, farewell !• whose merits claim, 

Justly, that highest badge to wear ! 
Heav'n bless your honour'd, noble name, 

To Masonry and Scotia dear ! 
A last request permit me here. 

When yearly ye assemble a', 
One round, I ask it with a tear, 

To him, the Bard that 's far awa'. 



AND MAUN I STILL ON MENIE 
DOAT. 

Tune — ' Jockeys grey bricks' 

Again rejoicing nature sees., 
Her robe assume its vernal hues, 

Her leafy locks wave in the breeze. 
All freshly steep'd iii morning dews^ 

CHORUS. 

And maun t still on Menie dbat. 
And bear the scorn that's in her e'e ? 

For it's jet, jet black, an' it's like a hawk, 
An' \t winna let a body be ! 

In vain to me the cowslips blaw, 
In vain to me the vi'lets spring; 

In vain to me, in glen or shaw, 
The mavis and the lintwhite sing. 
And mjiun I still, &c. 



<226 



AULD LANG SYNE. 



The merry ploughboy cheers his team, 
Wi' joy the tentie seedsman stalks, 

But life to me 's a weary dream, 
A dream of ane that never wauks. 
And maun I still, &c. 

The wanton coot the water skims, 
Amang the reeds the ducklings cry. 

The stately swan majestic swims. 
And every thing is blest but I. 
And maun I still, &c. 

The sheep-herd steeks his faulding slap, 
And owre the moorlands whistles 
shill, 
Wi' wild, unequal, wand' ring step 
I meet him on the dewy hill. 
And maun I still, &c. 

And when the lark, 'tween light and 
dark, 
Blythe waukens by the daisy's side, 
And mounts and sings on flittering 
wings, 
A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide. 
And maun I still, &c. 

Come Winter, with thine angry howl. 

And raging bend the naked tree ; 
Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul, 
When Nature all is sad like me ! 
And maun I still on Menie doat, 
And bear the scorn that's in her 
e'e? 
For it's jet, jet black, an' it's like a 
hawk, 
An' it winna let a body be ! 



HIGHLAND MARY. 

Tune — 'Katharine Ogie.' 

Y^ banks, and braes, and streams around 

The castle o' Montgomery, 
Green be your woods, and fair your 
flowers, 

Your waters never drumlie ! 
There simmer first unfauld her robes, 

And there the langest tarry ; 
For there I took the last fareweel 

O' my sweet Highland Mary. 



How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk. 

How rich the hawthorn's blossom. 
As underneath their fragrant shade 

I clasp 'd her to my bosom ! 
The golden hours, on angel wings, 

Flew o'er me and my dearie ; 
For dear to me, as light and life. 

Was my sweet Highland Mary. 

Wi' monie a vow, and lock'd embrace, 

Our parting was fu' tender ; 
And, pledging aft to meet again, 

We tore oursels asunder ; 
But oh ! fell death's untimely frost, 

That nipt my flower sae early ! 
Now green's the sod, and cauld's the 
clay. 

That wraps my Highland Mary ! 

O pale, pale now, those rosy lips, 

I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly ! 
And closed for ay the sparkling glance, 

That dwelt on me sae kindly ! 
And mould'ring now in silent dust, 

That heart that lo'ed me dearly f 
But still within my bosom's core 

Shall live my Highland Mary. 



AULD LANG SYNE. 

Should auld acquaintance \ie forgot, 
And never brought to min' ? 

Should auld acquamtance be forgot, 
And days o' lang syne ? 

CHORUS. 
For auld lang syne, my dear. 

For auld lang syne. 
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 

For auld lang syne. 

We twa hae run about the braes, 

And pu'd the gowans fine , 
But we've wander'd mony a weary foot 

Sin auld lang syne. 
For auld, &c. 

We twa hae paidl't i' the burn. 
From mornin sun till dine ; 

But seas between us braid hae roar'd 
Sin auld lang syne. 
For auld, &c. 



BANNOCKBURN 



ii^ 



And here's a hand, my trusty fiere, 

And gie's a hand o' thine ; 
And we'll tak a right guid willie-waught, 

For auld lang syne. 
For auld, &c. 

And surely ye'Il be your pint-stowp. 

And surely Fll be mine ; 
And we'll tak a cup o" kindness yet 

For auld lang syne. 
For auld, &c. 

BANNOCKBURN. 

kOBERT BRUCE'S address TO HIS ARMV. 

Tune — 'Hey tut tie tat tie.' 

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led ; 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or to glorious victorie, 

Now's the day, and novv's the hour ; 
See the front o' battle lower ; 
See approach proud Edward's power — 
Edward ! chains and slaverie ! 

Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
Wha can fill a coward's grave? 
Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
Traitor ! coward ! turn and flee ! 

Wha for Scotknd's King and law 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Free-man stand, or free-man fa' ? 
Caledonian ! on wi' me ! 

By oppression's woes and pains ! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 
But they shall — they shall be free ! 

Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty's in every blow ! 
Forward ! let as do, or die ! 

THE GALLANT WEAVER. 

Tune — ' The auld wi/e ayont the fire.' 

Where Cart rins rowln to the sea. 
By monie a flow'r and spreading tree, 
There lives a lad, the lad for me. 
He is a gallant weaver. 



Oh I had wooers aught or nine, 
They gied me rings and ribbons fine ; 
And I was fear'd my heart would tine, 
And I gied it to the weaver. 

My daddie sign'd my tocher-band. 
To gie the lad that has the land ; 
But to ray heart I'll add my hand. 
And gie it to the weaver. 

Whife birds rejoice in leafy bowers ; 
While bees rejoice in opening flowers ; 
While corn grows green in simmer 
showers, 
I'll love my gallant weaver. 



SONG. 

Anna, thy charms my bosom lire, 
And waste my soul with care ; 

But ah ! how bootless to admire, 
When fated to despair ! 

Yet in thy presence, lovely fair. 
To hope may be forgiven ; 

For sure, 'twere impious to despair 
So much in sight of heaven. 



FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT. 

Is there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head, and a' that? 
The coward-slave, we pass him by, 
We dare be poor for a' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Our toils obscure, and a' that ; 
The rank is but the guinea stamp ; 
The man's the gowd for a' that. 

What tho' on hamely fare we dine. 
Wear hodden-grey, and a' that ; 
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their 
wine, 
A man 's a man for a' that. 
For a' that, and a' that. 

Their tinsel show, and a' that ; 
The honest man, tho' e'er sac poor 
Is King o' men for a' that 



22$ 



DAINTY DA VIE. 



Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, 

Wha struts, and stares, and a' that ; 
Tho' hundreds worship at his word, 
He's but a coof for a' that : 
For a' that, and a' that, 

His jriband, star, and a' that, 
The man of independent mind. 
He looks and laughs at a' that. 

A prince can mak a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
But an honest man's aboon his might, 
Guid faith he mauna fa' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that. 

Their dignities, and a' that, 
The pith o' sense, and pride o' 
worth. 
Are higher rank than a' that. 

Then let us pray that come it may. 

As come it will for a' that ; 
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, 
May bear the gree, and a' that. 
For a' tha>-- aaid a' that. 

It's commg yet, for a' that. 
That man to man, the wai-ld o'er, 
Shall brothers be for a' that. 

DAINTY DAVIE. 

Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, 
To deck her gay, green spreading 

bowers ; 
And now comes in my happy hours, 
To wander wi' my Davie. 

CHORUS. 
Meet me on the warlock knowe, 

Dainty Davie, dainty Davie, 
There I'll spend the day wi' you. 

My ain dear dainty Davie. 

The crystal waters round us fa'. 
The merry birds are lovers a'. 
The scented breezes round us blaw, 
A wandering wi' my Davie. 

Meet me, &c. 

When purple morning starts the hare, 
To steal upon her early fare, 
Then through the dews I will repair, 
To meet my faithfu' Davie. 

Meet me. &c. 



"When day, expiring in the west. 
The curtain draws o' Nature's rest, 
I flee to his arms I lo'e best. 
And that's my ain dear Davie. 

Meet me, &c. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 
Tune—* The hopeless lover* 

Now spring has clad the groves in green, 

And strew'd the lea wi' flowers ; 
The furrow'd waving corn is seen 

Rejoice in fostering showers ; 
While ilka thing in nature join 

Their sorrows to forego, 
O why thus all alone are mine 

The weary steps of woe ! 

The trout within yon wimpling burn 

Glides swift, a silver dart. 
And safe beneath the shady thorn 

Defies the angler's art : 
My life was once that careless stream, 

That wanton trout was I ; 
But love, wi' unrelenting beam. 

Has scorch'd my fountain dry. 

The Httle flow'ret's peaceful lot. 

In yonder cliff that grows. 
Which, save the linnet's flight, I wot, 

Nae ruder visit knows. 
Was mine ; till love has o'er me past. 

And blighted a' my bloom. 
And now beneath the withering blast 

My youth and joy consume. 

The waken'd lav'rock warbling sprmgs. 

And climbs the early sky. 
Winnowing blithe her dewy wings 

In morning's rosy eye ; 
As little reckt I sorrow's power. 

Until the flowery snare 
O' witching love, in luckless hour. 

Made me the thrall o' care. 

O had my fate been Greenland's snows 

Or Afric's burning zone, 
Wi' man and nature leagu'd my foes. 

So Peggy ne'er I'd known ! 
The' wretch whase doom is, "Hope nae 
mair ! " 

What tongue his woes can tell ! 
Within whose bOsora, save despair, 

Nae kinder spirits dwell. 



CALEDONIA. 



229 



CLARINDA. 

Clarinda, mistress of my soul, 
The measur'd time is run ! 

The wretch beneath the dreary pole 
Sc marks his latest sun. 

To what dark cave of frozen night 
Shall poor Sylvander hie ; 

Depriv'd of thee, his life and light, 
The sun of all his joy ? 

We part — but by these precious drojis 

That fill thy lovely eyes ! 
No other light shall guide my steps 

Till thy bright beams arise. 



She, the fair sun of all her sex, 
Has blest my glorious day : 

And shall a glimmering planet fix 
My worship to its ray ? 

WHY, WHY TELL THY LOVER. 

Tune — ' Caledonian H/tnt's cielig/ii' 

Vv^HY, why tell thy lOver, 

Bliss he never must enjoy? 
Why, why undeceive him, 

And give all his hopes the lie ? 

O why, while fancy, raptur'd, slumbers, 
Chloris, Chloris all the theme ! 

Why, why wouldst thou, cruel. 
Wake thy lover from liis dream • 



CALEDONIA. 

Ti'NE— ' Caledonian Hiinfs delight. 

There was once a day, but old Time then was young, 

That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line, 
From some of your northern deities sprung : 

(Who knows not that brave Caledonia's divine?) 
From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain. 

To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would : 
Her heavenly relations there fixed her reign, 

And pledg'd her their godheads to warrant it good. 

A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war, 

The pride of her kindred the heroine grew ; 
Her grandsire, old Odin triumphantly swore, 

' Wlioe'er shall provoke thee, th' encounter shall rue ! ' 
With tillage or pasture at times she would sport;. 

To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn : 
P)Ut chiefly the woods were her fav'rite resort. 

Her darling amusement, the hounds and the horn. 

Long quiet she reign'd ; till thitherward steers 

A flight of bold eagles from Adria's strand ; 
Repeated, successive, for many long years, 

They darken'd the air, and they plunder'd the land. 
Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry. 

They conqucr'd and ruin'd a world beside ; 
She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly. 

The daring invaders they lied or they died. 

The fell Harpy-raven took wing from the north, 

The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore ; 

The wild Scandinavian boar issu'd forth 
To wanton in carnage and wJiHow in gore: 



230 



OM THE BA TTLE OF SHERIFF-MUIR. 



O'er countries and kingdoms their fuiy prevail'd, 
No arts could appease them, no arms could repel • 

But brave Caledonia in vain they assail'd, 

As Largs well can witness, and Loncavtle tell. 

The Caraeleon-savage disturb'd her repose, 

With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife ; 
Provok'd beyond bearing, at last she arose, 

And robb'd him at once of his hopes and his life : 
The Anglian lion, the terror of France, 

Oft prowling, eniianguin'd the Tweed's silver flood ; 
But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance, 

lie learned to fear in his own native wood. 

Thus bold, independent, unconquer'd, and free, 

Her Inight course of glory for ever shall run ; 
For brave Caledonia immortal must be ; 

I'll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun : 
Rectangle-triangle, the figure we'll choose. 

The upright is Chance, a,nd old Time is the base ; 
But brave Caledonia's the hypothenuse ; 

Then ergo, she'll match them, and match them always. 



ON THE BATTLE OF SHERIFF- 
MUIR, 

BETWEEN THE DUKR OF ARGVLE AND THE 
EARL OF MAR. 

Tune — ' The Cameroniati nvii." 

*0 CAM ye here the figlrt to shun. 

Or herd the shr-ep wi' mc, man ? 
Or were you at tlie Sherra-muir, 
And did the Ijattle see, man?' 
I saw the battle, sair and teugh. 
And re( king-red ran monie a sheugh, 
My heart, for fear, gae sough for sough, 
To hear the thuds, and see the chuls 
O' clans frae woods, in tartan duds, 
Wha glaum'd at Kingdoms three, 
man. 

The red coat lads, wi* black c./ckades, 
To meet them were na slaw, man ; 

They rush'd and push'd, and bludc out- 
gush'd, 
And monie a bouk did fa', man : 

And great Argyle led on his files, 

\ wat they glanced twenty miles ; 



They hack'd and hash'd, while broad- 
swords clash'd. 

And thro' they dash'd, and hew'd'and 
smash'd, 
Till fey men died awa, man. 

But had you seen the philibegs. 
And skyrin tartan trews, man. 
When in the teeth they dar'd our whigs. 

And covenant true blues, man ; 
In lines extended lang and large. 
When bayonets oppos'd the targe. 
And thousands hasten'd to the charge, 
Wi' Highland wrath they frae the sheath 
Drew blades o' death, till, out of breath. 
They fled like frighted doos, man. 

* O how deil, Tarn, can that be true ? 

The chase gaed frae the north, man : 
I saw mysel, they did pursue 

The horsemen back to Forth, man ; 
And at Dumblane, in my ain sight, 
They took the brig wi' a' their might, 
And straupht to Stirling wing'd their 

flight ; 
But, airsed lot ! the gates were shut. 
And monie a huntit, poor red-coat, 

Vox fear amaist did swarf, m^p,' 



WHA IS SHE THAT LO'ES ME? 



231 



My. sister Kate cam up the gate 

Wi' crowdie unto me, man ; 
She swore she saw some rebels run 
Frae Perth unto Dundee, man : 
Their left-hand general had nae skill, 
The Angus lads had nae guid-will. 
That day their neebors' blood to spill ; 
For fear, by foes, that they should lose 
Their cogs o' brose ; all crying woes. 
And so it goes, you see, man. 

They'v^ lost some gallant gentlemen 
Amang the Higliland clans, man ; 

I fear my lord Panmure is slain, 
Or fallen in whiggish hands, man : 

Now wad ye sing this double fight. 

Some fell for wrang, and some for right ; 

But monie bade the world guid-night ; 

Then ye may tell, how pell and mell, 

P>y red claymores, and muskets' knell, 

VVi' dying yell, the tories fell. 
And whigs to hell did flee, man. 



TME DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS. 

TuNK — ' Push about the jormn.* 

April, 1759. 

DoKS haughty Gaul invasion threat ? 

Then let the loons bewarCj Sir, 
There's wooden walls upon our seas, 

And volunteers on sliore. Sir. 
The Nith shall run to Corsincon, 

And Criffcl sink to Sol way, 
Ere we permit a foreign foe 

On British ground to rally ! 

Fal de ral, &c. 

O let us not like snarling tykes 

In wrangling be divided ; 
Till, slap, come in an unco loon 

Aild wi' a rung decide it. 
Be Britain still to Britain true, 

Amang oursels united ; 
For never but by British hands 

Maun British wrangs be righted ! 

Fal de ral, &c. 

The kettle o' the kirk and state, 
Perhaps a claut may fail iii't ; 

I>ut deil a foreign tinkler loon 
Shall ever ca' a nail in't. 



Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought. 
And -yvha wad dare to spoil it ; 

By heaven, the sacrilegious dog 
Shall fuel be to boil it. 

Falderal,.&c. 

The wretch that wad a tyx'ant own, 

And the wretch his true-born brother, 
Who would set the mob abgon the 
throne. 

May they be damned together ! 
Who will not sing, * God save the King,* 

Shall hang as high's the steeple ; 
But while we sing, ' God save the King,' 

We'll ne'er forget the People. 

O WHA IS SHE THAT LO'ES 

ME? 

TvNE.—' Morag-' 

O WHA is she that lo'es me, 
And has my heart a-keeping ? 

O sweet is she that lo'es- me, 
As dews o' simmer weeping, 
In tears the rose-buds steeping. 

CHORUS. 

O that's the lassie o' my heart, 

My lassie ever dearer ; 
O that's the queen o' womankind, 

Ancl ne'er a ane to peer her. 

If thou shalt meet a lassie. 

In grace and beauty cliarming, 

That e'en thy chosen lassie, 

Erewhile thy breast sae warming, 
Had ne'er sic powers alarming ; 
O that's, &c. 

If thou hadst heard her talking, 
And thy attentions plighted, 

That ilka body talking, 
Ijiit her by thee is slighted, 
And thou art all delighted ; 
O that's, &c. 

If thou hast met this fair one ; 
When frae her thou hast parted, 

If every other fair one. 

But her, thou hast deserted. 
And thou art broken-hearted ; 
O that's. &c. 



232 



O, ONCE I LOV'D A BON IE LASS. 



CAPTAIN GROSE. 

Tune — ' Sir John Malcolm.' 

Ken ye ought o' Captain Grose ? 

Igo, and ago, 
Tf he's amang his friends or foes ? 

Iram, coram, dago. 

Is he South, or is he North ? 

Igo, and ago, 
Or drowned in the river Forth ? 

Irani, coram, dago. 

Is he slain by Highland bodies ? 

Igo, and ago, 
Aiid eaten like a wether-haggis ? 

Iram, coram, dago. 

Is he to Abram's bosom gane? 

Igo, and ago, 
Or haudin Sarah by the wame ? 

Irani, coram, dago. 

Where'er he be, the Lord be near him ! 

Igo, and ago, 
^s for the deil, he daur na steer him. 

Iram, coram, dago. 

But please transmit th' enclosed letter, 

Igo, and ago. 
Which will oblige your humble debtor. 

Iiam, coram, dago. 

So may ye hae auld stanes in store, 

Igo, and ago. 
The very stanes that Adam bore. 

Iram, coram, dago. 

So may ye get in glad possession, 

Igo, and ago, ^ 
The coins o' Satan's coronation ! 

Iram, coram, dago. 



WHISTLE OWRE THE 
LAVE O'T. 

First wlien Maggy was my care, 
Heaven, I thought, was in her air ; 
Now we^re married — spier nae mair- 
Whislie owre !he lave o't. 



Meg was meek, and Meg was mild» 
Bonie Meg was nature's child — 
Wiser men than me's beguil'd ; — 
Whistle owre the lave o't. 

How we live, my Meg and me. 
How we love and how we 'gree, 
I care na by how few may see — 
Whistle owre the lave o't. 

Wha I wish were maggots' meat, 
Dish'd up in her winding sheet, 
I could write — but Meg maun see't — 
Whistle owre the lave o't. 

O, ONCE I LOV'D A BONIE 
LASS. 

Tune — ' / am a Man unmarried.' 

O, ONCE I lov'd a bonie lass, 

Ay, and I love her still, 
And whilst that virtue warms my breast 

I'll love my handsome Nell. 

Fal lal de.ral, &c. 

As bonie lasses I hae seen. 

And monie full as braw, 
But for a modest gracefu' miei» 

The like I never saw. 

A bonie lass, I will confess, 

Is pleasant to the ee, 
But without some better qualities 

She's no a lass for me. 

But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet. 

And what is best of a', 
Her reputation is complete. 

And fair without a flaw. 

She dresses aye sae clean and neat, 

Both decent and genteel : 
And then there's something in her gait 

Gars onie dress look weel. 

A gaudy dress and gentle air 
May slightly touch the heart. 

But it's innocence and modesty 
That polishes the dart. 

'Tis this in Nelly pleases me, 
'Tis this enchants my soul J 

For absolutely in my breast 
She reigns without control. 

Fal lal de ral, &c. 



THE DEAN OF FACULTY, 



233 



YOUNG JOCKEY. 

Young Jockey was the blithest lad 

In a' our town or here a\^a ; 
Fu' blithe he whistled at the' gaud, 

Fu' lightly danc'd he in the ha' ! 
He roos'd my een sae bonie blue, 

He roos'd my waist sae genty sma' ; 
An' aye my heart came to my mou. 

When ne'er a body heard or saw. 

My Jockey toils upon the plain, 

Thro' wind and weed, thro' frost 
and snaw ; 
And o'er the lea I look fu' fain 

When Jockey's owsen hameward ca*. 
An' aye the night comes round again, 

When in his arms he takes me a' ; 
An' aye he vows he'll be my ain 

As lang's he has a breath to draw. 



MTHERSON'S FAREWELL. 

FAREWELL,ye dungeons dark and strong, 

The wretch's destinie : 
M 'Pherson's time will not be long 

On yonder gallows tree. 

CHORUS. 
Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, 

Sae dauntingly gaed he ; 
He play'd a spring and danc'd it 
round. 
Below the gallows tree. 

Oil, what is death but parting breath?— 

On monie a bloody plain 
I've dar'd his face, and in this place 

I scorn him yet again ! 

Sae rantingly, &c. 

Untie these bands from off my hands, 
And bring to me my sword ! 

And tliere's no a man in all Scotland, 
But I'll brave him at a word. 
Sae rantingly, &c. 

I've liv'd a life of sturt and strife ; 

1 die by treacherie : 
It burns my heart I must depart 

And not avenged be. 

Sae rantingly, &c. 



Now farewell light, thou sunshine bright. 

And all beneath the sky ! 
May coward sh^me distain his name, 

The wretch that dares not die ! 
Sae rantingly, &c. 

THE DEAN OF FACULTY. 

A NEW BALLAD. 

Tune—* The Dragon of Waiptley: 

Dire was the hate at old Hatlaw 

That Scot to Scot did carry; 
And dire the discord Langside saw. 

For beauteous, hapless Mary : 
But Scot with Scot ne'er met so hot. 

Or were more in fury seen. Sir, 
Than 'twixt Hal and Bob for the famous 
job^ 

Who should be Faculty's Dean, Sir. 

This Hal for genius, wii and lore. 

Among the first was number'd ; 
But pious Bob, 'mid learning's store. 

Commandment the tenth remember'd. 
Yet simple Bob the victory got. 

And won his heart's desire ; 
Which shews that heaven can boil the pot. 

Though the devil piss in the fire. 

Squire Hal besides had, in this case, 

Pretensions rather brassy, 
For talents to deserve a place 

Are qualifications saucy ; 
So their worships of the Faculty, 

Quite sick of merit's rudeness, 
Chose one who should owe it all, d'ye see. 

To their gratis grace and goodness. 

As once on Pisgah purg'd was the sight 

Of a son of Circumcision, 
So may be, on this Pisgah height, 

Bob's purblind, mental vision ; 
Nay, Bobby's mouth may be open'd yet, 

Till for eloquence you hail him, 
And swear he has the Angel met 

That met the Ass of Balaam. 

In your heretic sins may ye live and die, 

Ye heretic eight and thirty ! 
But accept, ye sublime Majority, 

My congratulations hearty. 
With your Honors and a certain King, 

In your servants this is striking — 
The more incajiacity they bring. 

The more they're to your liking. 



234 



ON CESSNOCK BANKS. 



I'LL AY CA' IN BY YON TOWN. 

I'll ay ca' in by yon town, 

And by yon garden green again ; 

I'll ay ca' in by yon town, 
And See my bonie Jean again. 

There's nane sail ken, there's nane sail 
guess, 

What brings me back the gate again. 
But she, my fairest faithfu' lass. 

And stownlins we sail meet again. 

She'll wander by the aiken tree 

When trystin-time draws near again ; 
And when her lovely form I see, 

haith, she's doubly deal again ! 

A BOTTLE AND FRIEND. 

Here's a bottle and an honest friend ! 

What wad ye wish for mair, man ? 
Wha kens, before his life may' end, 

What his share may be o' care, man ? 
Then catch the moments as they fly. 

And use them as ye ought, man : — 
Believe me> happiness is shy, 

And comes not ay when sought, man. 

I'LL KISS THEE YET. 
Tune—* The Braes d Balqiihicider: 

CHORUS. 
I'll kiss thee yet, yet, 

And I'll kiss thee o'er again, 
An' I'll kiss thee yet, yet. 
My bonie Peggy Alison ! 

Ilk care and fear, when thou art near, 

1 ever mair defy them, O ; 
Young Kings itpon their hansel throne 

Are no sae blest as I am, O ! 
I'll kisS thee, &c. 

When in my arms, Ayi' a' thy charms, 
I clasp my countless treasure, O ; 

I seek nae mair o' Heaven to share, 
Than sic a moment's pleasure, O ! 
ril kiss thee, &c. 

And by thy een sae bonie blue, 
I swear I'm thine for ever, O ; — 

And on thy lips I seal my vow, 
And break it shall I never, O ! 
I'll kiss thee, &c. 



ON CESSNOCK BANKS. 
Tune—' If he he a Butcher neat and trim! 

On Cessnock banks a lassie dwells ; 

Could I describe her shape and mien ; 
Our lasses a' she far excels, 

An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

She's sweeter than the morning dawn 
When rising Phoebus first is seen. 

And dew-drops twinkle o'er the lawn ; 
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

.She's stately like yon youthful ash 
That grows the cowslip braes between, 

And drinks the stream with vigour fresh ; 
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

She's spotless, like the flow'ring thorn 
With flow'rs so white and leaves so 
green, 
When punest in the dewy mom ; 

An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

Her looks are like the vernal May, 
When ev'ning Phoebus shines serene, 

While birds rejoice on every spray ; 
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

Her hair is like the curling mist 

That climbs the mountain-sides at 
e'en, 
. When flow'r-reviving rains are past ; 
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

Her forehead's like the show'ry bow. 
When gleaming sunbeams intervene 

And gild the distant mountain's brow; 
An she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem, 
The pride of all the flowery scene. 

Just opening on its thorny stem ; 

An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 



YOUNG PEGGY. 



235 



Her teeth are like the nightly snow 

When pale the morning rises keen, 
While hid the murmuring streamlets 
flow ; 
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

Her lips are like yon cherries lipe, 

That suiiny walls from Boreas screen ; 
They tempt the taste and charm the 
sight ; 
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

Her teetli are like a flock of sheep, 
With fleeces newly washen clean, 

That slowly mount the rising steep : 
An' she has twa glancin' sparklin' 
een. 

Her breath is like the fragrant breeze 
That gently stirs the blossom'd bean. 

When Phoebus sinks behind the seas ; 
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

Her voice is like the ev'ning thrush 
That sings on Cessnock banks unseen, 

While his mate sits nestling in the bush; 
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish 
een. 

But it's not her air, her form, her face, 
Tho' matching beauty's fabled queen, 

'Tis the mind that shines in ev'ry 
grace, 
An' chiefly in her Rogueish een. 



PRAYER FOR MARY. 

Tune—' Bhie /ionieis.' 

Powers celestial, whose protection 

Ever guards the virtuous fair. 
While in distant climes I wander, 

Let my Mary be your care : 
Let her form sac fair and faultless. 

Fair and foultless as your own ; 
Let my Mary's kindred spirit 

Draw your choicest influence down. 



I 



Make the gales you waft around her 

Soft and peaceful as her breast ; 
Breathing in the breeze that fans her, 

Soothe her bosopi into rest : 
Guardian angels, O protect her. 

When in distant lands I roam ; 
To realms unknown while fate exiles me, 

Make her bosom still my home. 



YOUNG PEGGY. 

Tune — 'Last time I cam o'er the Mnir.* 

Young Peggy "blooms our bonniest 
lass. 

Her blush is like the anorning, 
The rosy dawn, the springing grass, 

With early gems adorning : 
Her eyes outshine the radiant beams 

That gild the passing shower, 
And glitter o'er the crystal streams. 

And cheer each fresh'ning flower. 

Her lips more than the cherries bright, 

A richer dye has grac'd them ; 
They charm th' admiring gazer's sight. 

And sweetly tempt to taste them : 
Her smile is as the ev'ning mild, 

When feather'd pairs are courting. 
And little lambkins wanton wild. 

In playful bands disporting. 

Were Fortune lovely Peggy's foe, 

Such sweetness would relent her, 
(\s blooming Spring unbends the 
brow 

Of surly, savage Winter. 
Detraction's eye no aim can gain 

Her winning powers to lessen j 
And fretful envy grins in vain. 

The poison'd tooth to. fasten. 

Ye Pow'rs of Honour, Love, and 
Truth, 

From ev'ry ill defend hre ; 
Inspire the highly favour'd youth 

The destinies ivitend her ; 
Still fan tlje sweet connubial flame 

Responsive in each bosom ; 
And bless the dear j^aronlal name 

With many a filial blossonv 



236 



TO MARY. 



THERE'LL NEVER BE PEACE TILL JAMIE COMES HAME. 

A 'SONG. 

By yon castle wa', at the close of the day, 
I heard a man sing, tho' his head it was gi-ey : 
And as he was singing, the tears fast down came — 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 

The church is in mins, the state is in jars, 
Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars ; 
We dare na weel say't, but we ken wha's to blame — 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 

My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword. 
And now I greet round their green beds in the yerd j 
It brak the sweet heart o' my faith fu' auld dame — 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 

Now life is a burden that bows me down, 
Sin' I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown ; 
But till my last moment my words are the same — 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 



THERE WAS A LAD. 

Tune — ' Dahity Davie. ^ 

There was a lad was born in Kyle, 
But what'n a day o' what'n a style 
I doubt it's hardly worth the while 
To be sae nice wi' Robin. 

Robin was a rovin' Boy, 

Rantin' rovin', rantin' rovin' ; 

Robin was a rovin' Boy, 
Rantin' rovin' Robin. 

Our monarch's hindmost year but ane 
Was five-and-twenty days begun, 
'Twas then a blast o' Janvvar win' 
Blew hansel in on Robin. 

The gossip keekit in his loof, 
Ouo* scho vvha lives will see the proof. 
This waly boy will be nae coof, 
I think we'll ca' him Robin. 

He'll hae misfdrtunes great and sma', 
But ay a heart aboon them a' ; 
He'll be a creHit till us a', 
We'll a' be proud o' Robin, 



But sure as three times three mak nine, 
I see by ilka score and line. 
This chap will dearly like our kin', 
So leeze me on thee, Robin. 

Guid faith, quo' scho, I doubt you. Sir, 
Ye gar the lasses lie aspar, 
But twenty fauts ye may hae waur, 
So blessings on thee, Robin ! 

Robin was a rovin' Boy, 

Rantin' rovin', rantin' rovin' ; 

Robin was a rovin' Boy, 
Rantin' rovin' Robin. 



TO MARY. 

TvHK—* Ewe-bitghts, Marion.' 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
And leave auld Scotia's shore ? 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Maiy, 
Across the Atlantic's roar ? 

O sweet grows the lime and the orange, 
And the apple on the pine ; 

But a' the charms o* the" Indies 
Can never equal thine. 



THE SOGER'S RETURN. 



237 



I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary, 
I hae sworn by the Heavens to be true ; 

And sae may the Heavens forget me, 
When I forget my vow ! 

O plight me your faith, my Mary, 
And plight me your lily-white hand ; 

O plight me your faith.^my Mary, 
Before I leave Scotia'iS strand. 

We hae plighted our troth, my Mary, 

In mutual affection to join. 
And curst be the cause that shall part us ! 

The hour, and the moment o' time ! 

MARY MORISON, 

Tune — * Bide ye yet.' 

Mary, at thy window be, 

It is the wish'd, the trysted hour ! 
Those smiles and glances let me see, 

That make the miser's treasure poor ; 
How blythely wad I bide the stoure, 

A weary slave frae sun to sun ; 
Could I the rich reward secure, 

The lovely Mary M orison. 

Yestreen, when to the trembling string 
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha'. 

To thee my fancy took its wing, 
I sat, but neither heard or saw : 

Tho' this was fair, and that was braw, 
And yon the toast of a* the town, 

1 sigh'd, and said amang them a', 

* Ye are na Mary Morison.' 

O Mary, canst thou wreck liis peace, 

Wha for thy sake wad gladly die? 
Or canst thou break that heart of his, 

Whase only faut is loving thee ? 
If love for love thou wilt na gie, 

At least be pity to me shown ! 
A thought ungentle canna be ^ 

The thought o' Mary Morison. 

THE SODGER'S RETURN. 

Tune—' The Mill Mill O.* 

When wild war's deadly blast was 
blawn, 
And gentle peace returning, 



Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless, 
And mony a widow mourning : 

I left the lines and tented field. 
Where lang I'd been a lodger, 

My humble knapsack a' my wealth, 
A poor and honest sodger. 

A leal, light heart was in my breast. 

My hand unstain'd wi' plunder ; 
And for fair Scotia, hame again 

I cheery on did wander. 
I thought upon the banks o' Coil, 

I thought upon my Nancy, 
i thought upon the witching smile 

That caught my y0uthfj.1l fancy. 

At length I reach'd the bonie glen, 

Wliere early life I sported j 
I pass'd the mil), and trysting thorn. 

Where Nancy aft I courted : 
Wha spied I but my ain dear maid, 

Down by her mother's dwelling! 
And turn'd me round to hide the flood 

That in my een was swelling. 

Wi* altcr'd voice, quoth I, Sweet lass. 
Sweet as yon hawthorn blossom, 

! happy, happy may he be, 
That's dearest to thy bosom ! 

My purse is light, I've far to gang, 
And fain wad be thy lodger ; 

I've serv'd my King and Country lang— 
Take pity on a sodger ! 

Sae wistfully she gaz'd on me, 

And lovelier was than ever : 
Quo' she, a sodger ance I lo'ed, 

Forget hun shall I never : 
Our humble cot, and hamely fare, 

Ye freely shall partake it, 
That gallant badge, the dear cockade, 

Ye're welcome for the sake o't. 

She gaz'd— she redden''d like a rose- 
Syne pale like onie lily; 

She sank within my arms, and cried, 
Art thou my ain dear Willie ? 

By Him who made yon sun and sky, 
By whom true love's regarded, 

1 am the man ; and thus may still 
True lovers be rewarded J 



238 



MV FATHER WAS A FARMER. 



The wars are o'er, and I'm cortle hame, 

And find thee still true-hearted ; 
Tho' poor in gear, we're rich in love. 

And mair we'se ne'er be parted. 
Quo' she, My grandsire left me gowd, 

A mailen plenish'd fairly ; 
And come, my faithful sodger lad,' 

Thou'rt welcome to it dearly ! 



For gold the merchant ploughs the main. 

The farmer ploughs the manor ; 
But glory is the sodger's prize ; 

The sodger's wealth is honour : 
The brave poor sodger ne'er despise, 

Nor count him as a stranger, 
Remember he's his Country's stay 

In day and hour o' danger. 



MY FATHER WAS A FARMER. 
Tone—' T/ie Weaver and his Shuttle, O* 

My Father was a Farmer upon the Carrick border, O 

And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O 

He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a farthing, O 

For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O. 

Then out into the world my course I did determine, O 
Tho' to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming, O 
My talents they were not the worst ; nor yet my education, O 
Resolv'd was I, at least to try, to mend my situation, O. 

In many a way, and vain essay, I courted fortune's favour ; O 
Some cause unseen still stept between, to frustrate each endeavour, O 
Sometimes by foes I was o erpower'd ; sometimes by friends forsaken ; O 
And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken, O. 

Then sore harass'd, and tir'd at last, with fortune's vain delusion ; O 
I dropt my schemes, like, idle dreams, and came to this conclusion ; O 
The past was bad, and the future hid ; its good or ill untried ; O 
But the present hour was in my pow'r, and so I would enjoy it, O 

No help, nor hope, nor view had I ; nor person to befriend me ; O 
So I must toil, and sweat and broil, and labour to sustain me, O 
To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred me early ; O 
For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for fortune fairly, O. 

Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro' life I'm doom'd to wander, O 
Till down my weary bones I lay in everlasting slumber ; O 
No view nor care, "but shun whate'er might breed me pain or sorrow ; O 
1 live to-day as well's I may, regardless of to-morrow, O. 

But cheerful still, I am as well as a monarch in a palace, O 

Tho' fortune's frown still hunts me down, with all her wonted malice ; O 

I make indeed my daily bread, but ne'er can make it farther; O 

But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard her, O. 

When sometimes by my labour I earn a little money, O 
Some unforeseen misfortune comes generally upon me ; O 
Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my good-natur'd folly ; O 
liut come what will, I've sworn it still, I'll ne'er be melancholy, O. 

All you who follow wealth and power, with unremitting ardour, O 
The more in this yea look for bliss, you leave your view the farther ; O 
Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore you, O 
A cheerful honest -hearted clown I will prefer before you, O. 



WHEN FIRST 1 CAME TO STEWART JCYLE. 



i%t^ 



A MOTHER'S LAMENT FOR 
THE DEATH OF HER SON. 

Tune — ' Finlnystou House.' 

Fate gave the word, the arrow sped, 

And pierc'd my darling's heart ; 
And with him all the joys arc fled 

Life can to me impart ! 
By cruel hands the sapling drops, 

In dust dishonour'd laid : 
So fell the pride of all my hopes, 

My age's future shade. 

The mother-linnet in the brake 

Bewails her ravish'd young ; 
So I, for my lost darling's sake, 

Lament the live-day long. 
Death, oft I've fear'd thy fatal blow. 

Now, fond, I bare my breast, 
O, do thou kindly lay me low 

With him I love, at rest ! 

BONIE LESLEY. 

Tune — ' The Collier s bonie Dochicr.' 

O SAW ye bonie Lesley 
As she gaed o'er the border ? 

She's gane, like Alexander, 
To spread her conquests farther. 

To see her is to love, her, 
And love but her for ever ; 

For Nature made her what slie is, 
And ne'er made sic anlLlicr ! 

Thou art a queen, Fair Lesley, 
Thy subjects we, before Ihco : 

Thou art div"ne, I'air Lesley, 
The hearts o' men adore thee. 

The Deil he couhl na scaitli thee, 
Or aught that wad bclang tlicc ; 

He'd look into thy bonie face, 
And say, ' 1 canna wrang thee. 

The I'owers aboon will tent thee \ 
Misfortune sha'na steer tliee ; 

Thou'rt like llicniselves sae lovely, 
That ill they'll ne'er let near tliee. 

Return again. Fair Lesley, 

Return to Caledonie ! 
That we may brag, we hae a lass 

There's nane again sae l)onie. 



AMANG THE TREES. 

Tune — ' The King of France, he rade a race.' 

Amang the trees where humming bees 

At buds and flowers were hinging, O 
Auld Caledon drew out her drone, 

And to her pipe was singing ; O 
'Twas Pibroch, Sang, Stratlispey, or 
Reels, 

She dirl'd them aff fu' clearly, O 
When there cam a yell o' foreign squeels, 

I'hat dang her tapsalteerie, O — 

Their capon craws and queer ha ha's, 

They made our lugs grow eerie ; O 
The hungry bike did scrape and pike 

Till- we were wae and wearie : O — 
But a royal ghaist wha ance was cas'd 

A prisoner augliteen year awa, 
He fir'd a fiddler in the north 

That dang tliem tapsalteerie, O. 



WHEN FIRST I CAME TO 
STEWART KYLE. 

TuNK— ' / had n horse and I had nae viair.' 

When firet I cawe to Stewart Kyle, 

My mind it was Da steady, 
Where'er I gaed, where'er I rade, 

A mistress still I had aye : 
But when I came roun' by Mauchlinc 
town, 

Not drcadin' onic body, 
My heart was caught before I thought, 

And by a Mauchline lady. 



ON SENSIBILITY. 

TO MY DKAR AND MUCH (FONOURKD FKIKNI), 
MUS. UUNI.OP, OF DUNLOIV 

A I K — ' Sensibility. ' 

SKNSir.iLiTY, how charming, 

Thou, my friend, canst truly tell ; 

But distress, with horrors armings 
Thou hast also known too well ! 

Fairest flower, behold the lily, 
J51()oming in the sunny ray : 

Let the blast sweep o'er the valley, 
See it prostrate on the clay. 



240 



RAGING FORTUNE'S WITHERING BLAST 



Hear the wood-lark charm the forest, 
Telling o'er his little jo) s ; 

Hapless bird ! a prey the surest 
To each pirate of the skies. 

Dearly bought the hidden treasure 
Finer feelings can bestow ; 

Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure 
Thrill the deepest notes of woe. 



MONTGOMERIE'S PEGGY. 
TuNE-'Ca/Za Water.' 

Altho' my bed were in yon muir, 
Amang the heather, in my plaidie, 

Yet happy, happy would I be. 

Had I my dear Montgomerie's Peggy. 

When o'er the hill beat surly storms. 
And winter nights were dark and rainy, 

I'd seek some dell, and in my arms 
I'd shelter dear Montgomerie's Peggy. 

Were I a Baron proud and high, 

And horse and servants waiting ready, 

Then a' 'twad gie o' joy to me. 

The sharin'twi' Montgomerie's Peggy. 



ON A BANK OF FLOWERS. 

On a bank of flowers, in a summer day. 

For summer lightly drest, 
The youthful blooming Nelly lay. 

With love and sleep opprest ; 

When Willie, wand'ring thro' the wood. 
Who for her favour oft had sued ; 
Hegaz'd, hewish'd, he fear'd, heblush'd. 
And trembled where he stood. 

Her closed eyes, like weapons sheath'd, 

Were seal'd in soft repose ; 
Her lips, still as she fragrant breath 'd, 

It richer dy'd the rose. 

The springing lilies sweetly prest. 
Wild-wanton kiss'd her rival breast ; 
He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd. 
His bosom 'ill at rest. 



Her robes, light waving in the breeze, 

Her tender limbs embrace ! 
Her lovely form, her native ease, 

All harmony and grace ! 

Tumultuous tides his pulses roll, 
A faltering ardent kiss he stole ; 
Hegaz'd, hewish'd, he fear'd, heblush'd, 
And sigh'd his very soul. 

As flies the partridge from the brake 

On fear-inspired wings ; 
So Nelly, starting, half awake. 

Away affrighted springs ; 

But Willie follow' d — as he should. 
He overtook her in the wood : 
He vow'd, Jie pray'd, he found the maid 
Forgiving all, and good. 



O RAGING FORTUNE'S 
WITHERING BLAST. 

O RAGING fortune's withering blast 
Has laid my leaf full low ! O 

O raging fortune's withering blast 
Has laid my leaf full low ! O. 

My stem was fair, my bud was green, 
My blossom sweet did blow ; O 

The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild. 
And made my branches grow ; O. 

But luckless fortune's northern storms 
Laid a' my blossoms low, O 

But luckless fortune's northern storms 
Laid a' my blossoms low, O. 



EVAN BANKS. {See note.) 

Tune — ' Savourna Delish. 

Slow spreads the gloom my soul desires, 
The sun from India's shore retires : 
To Evan Banks with temp'rate ray, 
Home of my youth, he leads the day. 

Oh Banks to me for ever dear \ 
Oh stream, whose murmurs still I hear? 
All, all my hopes of bliss reside 
Where Evan mingles with the Clyde. 



TO MARY IN HE A VEN. 



241 



And she, in simple beauty drest, 
Whose image lives within my breast ; 
Who trembling heard my parting sigh, 
And long pursued me with her eye : 

Does she, with heart unchang'd as mine, 
Oft in the vocal bowers recline? 
Or, where yon grot o'erhangs the tide, 
Muse while the Evan seeks the Clyde ? 

Ye lofty Banks that Evan bound, 
Ye lavish woods that wave around. 
And o'er the stream your shadows throw, 
Which sweetly winds so far below ; 

What secret charm to mem'ry brings. 
All that on Evan's border springs ! 
Sweet Banks ! ye bloom by Mary's side : 
Blest stream ! she views thee haste to 
Clyde. 

Can all the wealth of India's coast 
Atone for years in absence lost !. 
Return, ye moments of delight, 
With richer treasures bless my sight ! 

Swift from this desert let me part. 
And fly to meet a kindred heart ! 
No more may aught my steps divide 
From that dear stream which flows to 
Clyde ! 



WOMEN'S MINDS. 

Tune— '/"^rrt' thnV 

Tho' women's minds like winter winds 
May shift and turn, and a' that, 

The noblest breast adores them maist, 
A consequence I draw that. 

For a' that, and a' that. 

And twice as meikle's a' that, 

The bonie lass that I loe best 
She'll be my ain for a' that. 

Great love I bear to all the fair, 
Their humble slave, and a' that ; 

But lordly will, I hold it still 
A mortal sin to thraw that. 
For a' that, &c. 



But there is ane aboon the lave. 
Has wit, and sense, and a' that ; 

A bonie lass, I like her best, 
And wha a crime dare ca' that ? 
For a' that, &c. 

In rapture sweet this hour we m«et, 
Wi' mutual love and a' that ; 

But for how lang the flie may stang, 
Let inclination law that 
For a' that, &c. 

Their tricks and craft hae put me daft, 

They've ta'en me in, and a' that ; 
But clear your decks, and here's * The 
Sex ! ' 
I like the jades for a' that. 
For a' that, &c. 



TO MARY IN HEAVEN. 

TvNE—'Miss Forhe^ farewell to Banff.' 

Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray, 

That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
Again thou usher'st in the day 

My Mary from my soul was torn, 
O Mary ! dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his 
breast ? 

That sacred hour can I forget ? 

Can I forget the hallow'd grove. 
Where by the winding Ayr we met, 

To live one day of parting love ? 
Eternity will not efface 

Those records dear of transports past; 
Thy image at our last embrace ; 

Ah ! little thought we 'twas our last ! 

Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore, 

O'erhung with wild woods, thick 'ning 
green; _ 
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, 

Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd 
scene. 
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, 

The birds sang love on ev'ry spray, 
Till too, too soon, the glowing west 

Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. 



242 



SWEETEST MAY. 



Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care ! 
Time but the impression deeper makes, 

As streams their channels deeper wear. 
My Mary, dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy blissful place of rest ? 
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his 
breast ? 

TO MARY. 

Could aught of song declare my pains, 
Could artful numbers move thee, 

The Muse should tell, inlabour'd strains, 
O Mary, how I love thee ! 

They who but feign a wounded heart 
May teach the lyre to languish ; 

But what avails the pride of art. 

When wastes the soul with anguish ? 

Then let the sudden bursting sigh 
The heart-felt pang discover ; 

And in the keen, yet tender eye, 
O read th' imploring lover ! 

For well I know thy gentle mind 
Disdains art's gay disguising ; 

Beyond what fancy e'er refin'd, 
The voice of nature prizing. 

O LEAVE NOVELS. 

O LEAVE novels, ye Mauchline belles, 
Ye' re safer at your spinning wheel ; 

Such witching books are baited hooks 
For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel. 

Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons, 
They make your youthful fancies reel, 

Tliey heat your brains, and fire your veins, 
And then you're prey for Rob Moss- 
giel. 

Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung ; 

A heart that warmly seems to feel ; 
That feeling heart but acts a part, 

'Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel. 

The frank address, the soft caress. 
Arc worse than poison'd darts of steel, 

The frank address, and politesse, 
Are all finesse in Rob Mossgiel. 



ADDRESS TO GENERAL 
DUMOURIER. 

A PARODY ON ROBIN ADAIR. 

You're welcome to Despots, Dumou- 

rier ; 
You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier ; 
How does Dampiere do ? 
Aye, and Bournonville too ? 
Why did they not come along with you, 

Dumourier ? 

I will fight France with you, Dumourier ; 
I will fight France with you, Dumourier 
I will fight France with you, 
I will take my chance with you ; 
By my soul I'll dance a dance with you, 
Dumourier. 

Then let us fight about, Dumourier ; 
Then let us fight about, Dumourier ; 
Then let us fight about. 
Till freedom's spark is out. 
Then we'll be damn'd no doubt — Du- 
mourier. 



SWEETEST MAY. 

Sweetest May^ let love inspire thee ; 
Take a heart which he designs thee;' 
As thy constant slave regard it ; 
For its faith and truth reward it. 

Proof o' shot to birth or money, 
Not the wealthy, but the bonie ; 
Not high-born, iDut noble-minded, 
In love's silken band can bind it ! 



ONE NIGHT AS I DID WANDER. 

Tl'NE — ' John Anderson my Jo' 

One night as I did wander. 
When corn begins to shoot, 

I sat me down to ponder. 
Upon an auld tree root : 

Auld Ayr ran by before me, 
And bicker'd to the seas ; 

A cushat crooded o'er me 
That echoed thro' the braes. 



THE BELLES OF MAUCHLINE. 243 

THE WINTER IT IS PAST. 

A FRAGMENt. 

The winter it is past, and the simmer comes at last. 

And the small birds sing on every tree ; 
Now every thing is glad, while I am very sad, 

Since my true love is parted from me. 

The rose upon the brier by the waters running clear, 

May have charms for the linnet or the bee ; 
Their little loves are blest, and their little hearts at rest, 

But my true love is parted from me. 

FRAGMENT. 



Her flowing locks, the raven's wing, 
Adown her neck and bosom hing ; 

How sweet unto that breast to cling, 
And round that neck entwine her ! 



Her lips are roses wet ,wi' dew ! 

O, what a feast her bonie mou ! 
Her cheeks a mair celestial hue, 

A crimson still diviner ! 



THE CHEVALIER'S LAMENT. 

TvNE—' Ca/iain O'JCean.' 

The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning, 
The murmuring streamlet winds clear thro' the vale ; 

The hawthorn trees blow in the dews of the morning. 
And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale : 

But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair. 
While the lingering moments are number'd by care ? 

No flowers gaily springing, nor birds sweetly singing. 
Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair. 

The deed that I dar'd could it merit their malice, 
A King or a Father to place on his throne ? 

His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys. 
Where the wild beasts find shelter, but I can find none. 

But 'tis not my sufferings thus wretched, forlorn. 
My brave gallant friends, 'tis your ruin I mourn : 

Your deeds prov'd so loyal in hot bloody trial, 
Alas ! can I make you no sweeter return ? 

THE BELLES OF MAUCHLINE. 

Tune — 'Bonnie Dundee* 

In Mauchline there dwells six proper young Belles, 
The pride of the place and it's neighbourhood a', 

Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess, 
In Lon'on or Paris they'd gotten it a' : 

Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland's divine, 

Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw : 

There's beauty and fortune to get wi' Miss Morton, 
But Armour's the jewel for me o' them a'. 



244 



THE TORBOLTON LASSES. 



THE TARBOLTON LASSES. 



If ye gae up to yon hill-tap, 
Ye'll there see bonie Peggy ; 

She kens her father is a laird, 
And she forsooth 's a leddy. 

There Sophy tight,, a lassie bright, 
Besides a handsome fortune : 

Wha canna win her in a night, 
Has little art in courting. 

Gae down by Faile, and taste the ale. 
And talc a look o' Mysie ; 

She's dour and din, a deil within, 
But aiblins she may please ye. 



If she be shy, her sister try, 
Ye'll maybe fancy Jenny, 

If ye'll dispense wi' want o' sense- 
She kens hersel she's bonie. 

As ye gae up by yon hill-side, 

Speer in for bonie Bessy ; 
She'll gi'e ye a beck, and bid ye light. 

And handsomely address ye. 

There's few sae bony, nane sae gude, 
In a' King George' dominion ; 

If ye should doubt the truth o' this — 
It's Bessy's ain opinion ! 



THE TARBOLTON LASSES. 

liN Tarbolton, ye ken, there are proper young men, 
And proper young lasses and a', man ; 

But ken ye the Ronalds that live in the Bennals, 
They carry the gree frae them a', man. 

Their father's a laird, and weel he can spare 't, 
Braid money to tocher them a', man. 

To proper young men, he'll clink in the hand 
Gowd guineas a hunder or twa, man. 

There's ane they ca' Jean, I'll warrant ye've seen 

As bonie a lass or as braw, man. 
But for sense and guid taste she'll vie wi' the best. 

And a conduct that beautifies a', man. 

The charms o' the min', the langer they shine. 
The mair admiration they draw, man ; 

While peaches and cherries, and foses and lilies, 
They fade and they wither awa, man. 

If ye be for Miss Jean, tak this frae a frien', 

A hint o' a rival or twa, man. 
The Laird o' Blackbyre wad gang through the fire, 

If that wad entice her awa, man. 

The Laird o' Braehead has been on his speed. 
For mair than a towmond or twa, man. 

The Laird o' the Ford will straught on a board. 
If he canna get her at a', man. 

Then Anna comes in, the pride o* her kin, 
The boast of our bachelors a', man ; 

Sae sonsy and sweet, sae fully complete. 
She steals our affections awa, man. 



HERE'S A HEALTH TO THEM THAT'S A IVA. 245 

If I should detail the pick and the wale 

O' lasses that live here awa, man, 
The fault wad be mine, if they didna shine, 

The sweetest and best o' them a', man. 

I lo'e her mysel, but darena weel tell, 

My poverty keeps me in awe, man, 
For making o' rhymes, and working at times, 

Does little or naething at a*, man. 

Yet I wadna choose tcJ let her refuse,. 

Nor ha'e 't in her power to say na, man, 
For though I be poor, unnoticed, obscure. 

My stomach's as proud as them a', man. 

Though I canna ride in weel-booted pride, 

And flee o'er the hills like a craw, man, 
I can, haud up my head wi' the best o' the breed, 

Though fluttermg ever so braw, man. 

My coat and my vest, they are Scotch o' the best, 

O* pairs o' guid breeks I ha'e twa, man. 
And stockings and pumps to put on my stumps, 

And ne'er a wrang steek in them a*, man. 

My sarks they are few, but five o' them new, 

Twal' hundred, as white as the snaw, man, 
A ten-shilling's hat, a Holland cravat ; 

There are no mony poets sae braw, man. 

I never had frien's, weel stockit in means. 

To leave me a hundred or twa, man, 
Nae weel tochered aunts, to wait on their drants. 

And wish them in hell for it a', man. 

I never was canny for hoarding o' money. 

Or claughtin't together at a', man, 
I've little to spend, iand naething to lend, 

But deevil a shilling I awe, man;> 



HERE'S A HEALTH TO THEM THAT'S AWA. 



Here's a health to them that's awa, 
Here's a health to them that's awa ; 
And wha winna wish guid luck to our 

cause, 
May never guid luck be their fa' ! 
It's guid to be meny and wise, 
It's guid to be honest and true, 
It's guid to support Caledonia's cause, 
And bide by the buff and the blue. 



Here's a health to them that's awa, 
Here's a health to them that's awa, 
Here's a health to Charlie the chief o 

the clan, 
Allho' that his band be but sma'. 
May liberty meet'wi' success ! 
May prudence protect her frae evil ! 
May tyrants and tyranny tine in the mist, 
And wander their way to the devil ,! 



246 



MY LADY'S GOWN THERE'S GAIRS VPON'T. 



Here's a health to them that's awa, 
Here's a health to them that's awa ; 
Here's a health to Tammie, the Norland 

laddie, 
That lives at the lug o' the law ! 
Here's freedom to him that wad read. 
Here's freedom to him that wad write ! 
There's nane ever fear'd that the truth 

should be heard. 
But they wham the truth wad indite. 
Here's a health to them that's awa, 
Here's a health to them that's awa, 
Here's Chieftain M'Leod, a Chieftain 

worth gowd, 
Tho' bred among mountains o' snaw ! 



I'M OWRE YOUNG TO MARRY 
YET. 

I AM my mammie's ae bairn, 
Wi' unco folk I weary, Sir j 

And lying in a man's bed, 
I'm fley'd wad mak me eerie, Sir. 

CHORUS. 

I'm owre young, I'm owre young, 
I'm owre young to marry yet ; 

I'm owre young, 'twad be a sin 
To tak me frae my mammie yet. 

My mammie coft me a new gown. 
The kirk maun hae the gracing o't ; 

Were I to lie wi' you, kind vSir, 
I'm fear'd ye'd spoil the lacing o't. 
I'm owre young, &c. 

Hallowmas is come and gane, 

The nights are lang in winter. Sir ; 

And you an' I in ae bed, 

In troth I dare na venture, Sir. 
I'm owre young, &c. 

Fu' loud and shrill the frosty wind 
Blaws thro' the leafless timmer, Sir ; 

But if ye come this gate again, 
I'll aulder be gm simmer. Sir. 
I'm owre young, &c. 



DAMON AND SYLVIA. 

Tune — ' The tither morn, as I\/orlorft.' 

Yon wand'ring rill, that marks the hill, 
And glances o'er the brae. Sir : 

Slides by a bower where monie a flower 
Sheds fragrance on the day. Sir. 

There Damon lay, with Sylvia gay : 
To love they thought nae crime. Sir ; 

The wild-birds sang, the echoes rang, 
While Damon's heart beat time, Sir. 



MY LADY'S GOWN THERE'S 
GAIRS UPON'T, 

CHORUS. 
My lady's gown there's gairs upon't, 
And gowden flowers sae rare 

upon't ; 
But Jenny's jimps and jirkinet, 
My lord thinks muckle mair upon't 

My lord a-hunting he is gane, 
But hounds or hawks wi' him are nane, 
By Colin's cottage lies his game, 
If Colin's Jenny be at hame. 
My lady's gown, &c. 

My lady's white, my lady's red, 
And kith and kin o' Cassillis' blude, 
But her ten-pund lands o' tocher guid 
Were a' the charms his lordship lo'ed. 
My lady's gown, &c. 

Out o'er yon muir, out o'er yon moss, 
Whare gor-cocks thro' the heather pass, 
There wons auld Colin's boriie lass, 
A lily in a wilderness. 
My lady's gown, &c. 

Sae sweetly move her genty limbs, 
Like music notes o' lover's hymns : 
The diamond dew in her een sae blue. 
Where laughing love sae wanton swims. 
My lady's gown, &c. 

My lady's dink, my lady's drest, 
The flower and fancy o' the west ; 
But the lassie that a man lo'es best, 
O that's the lass to make Jiim bkst 
My lady's gown, &c. 



WHY THE DEUCE. 



247 



O AY MY WIFE SHE DANG ME. 

CHORUS. 

O ay my wife she dang me, 
An' aft my wife did bang me ; 
If ye gie a woman a' her will, 
Guid faith she'll soon o'ergang ye. 

On peace and rest my mind was bent, 

And fool I was I marry'd ; 
But never honest man's intent 

As cursedly miscarry'd. 

Some sa'r o' comfort still at last, 
When a' thir days are done, man, 

My pains o' hell on earth are past, 
I'm sure o' bliss aboon, man. 
O ay my wife, &c. 



THE BANKS OF NITH. 

A BALLAD. 

To thee, lov'd Nith, thy gladsome plains, 
Where late wi' careless thought I 
rang'd. 

Though prest wi' care and sunk in woe, 
To thee I bring a heart unchang'd. 

I love thee, Nith, thy banks and braes, 
Tho' mem'ry there my bosom tear \ 

For there he rovVl that brake my heart, 
Yet to that heart, ah, still how dear ! 



BONIE PEG. 

As I came in by our gate end, 

As day was wax in' weary, 
O wha came tripping down the street, 

But bonie Peg, my dearie ! 

Her air sae sweet, and shape complete, 
Wi' nae proportion wanting. 

The Queen of Love did never move 
Wi' motion mair enchanting. 

Wi' linked hands, we took the sands 

Adown yon winding river; 
And, oh ! that hour and broomy bower, 

Can I forget it ever ? 



O LAY THY LOOF IN MINE, 
LASS. 

CHORUS. 

O lay thy loof in mine, lass, 
In mine, lass, in mine, lass. 

And swear in thy white hand, lass. 
That thou wilt be my ain, 

A SLAVE to love's unbounded sway. 
He aft has wrought me meikle wae ; 
But now he is my deadly fae. 
Unless thou be my ain. 
O lay thy loof, &c. 

There's monie a lass has broke my rest, 
That for a blink I hae lo'ed best; 
But thou art Queen within my breast, 
For ever to remain. 
O lay thy loof, &c. 

O GUID ALE COMES. 

CHORUS. 

guid ale comes, and guid ale goes, 
Guid ale gars me sell my hose. 

Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon, 
Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. 

I HAD sax owsen in a pleugh, 
They drew a* weel eneugh, 
I sell'd them a' just ane by ane ; 
Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. 

Guid ale bauds me bare and busy. 
Gars me moop wi' the servant hizzie. 
Stand i' the stool when I hae done, 
Guid ale keeps my heart aboon, 
O guid ale comes, &c. 

O WHY THE DEUCE. 

EXTEMPORE. APRIL, 1782. 

WHY the deuce should I repine. 
And be an ill foreboder ? 

I'm twenty-three, and five feet nine — 
I'll go and be a sodger. 

1 gat some gear wi' meikle care, 

1 held it weel thegither ; 

But now it's gane and something mail, 
I'll go and be a sodgef. 



24S 



THE FIVE CARLINS. 



POLLY STEWART. 

Tune — ' Ye're welcome, Charley Stewart.' 

CHORUS. 

O lovely Polly Stewart, 

charming Polly Stewart, 
There's ne'er a flower that blooms in 

May, 
That's half so fair as thou art. 

The flower it blaws, it fades, it fa's. 
And art can ne'er renew it ; 

But worth and truth eternal youth 
Will gie to Polly Stewart. 

May he, whase arms shall fauld thy 
charms, 
Possess a leal and true heart ; 
To him be given to ken the heaven 
He grasps in Polly Stewart. 
O lovely, &c. 

ROBIN SHURE IN HAIRST. 

CHORUS. 

Robin shure in hairsl, 

I shure wi' him, 
Fient a heuk had I, 

Yet I stack by him. 

1 GAED up to Dunse, 

To warp a wab o' plaiden, 
At his daddie's yett, 

Wha met me but Robin. 

Was na Robin bauld, 

Tho' I was a cotter, 
Play'd me sick a trick 

And me the eller's dochter ? 

Robin promis'd me 

A' my winter vittle ; 
Fient haet he had but three 

Cxoose feathers and a whittle. 
Robin shure, &c. 

THE FIVE CARLINS, 

AN ELECTION BALLAD. Z789. 

Tune — * Chevy Chase.' 

There were five Carlins in the south, 

They fell upon a scheme. 
To send a lad to Lon'on town 

To bring us tidings liame. 



Not only bring us tidings hame, 

But do our errands there. 
And aiblins gowd and honour baith 

Might be that laddie's share. 

There was Maggie by the banks o' 
Nith, 

A dame_wi* pride eneugh ; 
And Marjorie o' the monie Lochs, 

A Carlin auld an' teugh. 

And blinkin Bess o* Annandale, 
That dwells near Solway side, 

And whisky Jean that took her gill 
In Galloway so wide. 

And auld black Joan frae Creighton 
peel, 

O* gipsy kith an* kin. 
Five wighter Carlins were na foua' 

The south kintra within. 

To send a lad to Lon'on town 

They met upon a day, 
And mOnie a Knight and monie a 
Laird, 

That errand fain would gae. 

O ! monie a Knight and monie a Laird, 
This errand fain would gae ; 

But nae ane could their fancy please, 
O ! ne'er a ane but twae. 

The first ane was a belted Knight, 

Bred o' a border clan. 
An* he wad gae to Lon'on town,. 

Might nae man him withstan' : 

And he wad do their errands weel, 

And meikle he wad say, 
And ilka ane at Lon'on court 

Wad bid to him guid day. 

Then neist came in a sodger youth. 
And spak wi' modest grace, 

An' he wad gae to Lon on town, 
If sae their pleasure was. 

He wad na hecht them courtly gift, 
Nor meikle speech pretend ; 

But he wad hecht an honest heart 
Wad ne'er desert his friend. 



THE LASS THA T MADE THE BED TO ME. 



249 



Nowwham to choose and wham refuse, 

To strife thae Carlins fell ; 
For some had gentle folk to please, 

And some wad please themsel. 

Then out spak mim-mou'd Meg o' Nith, 

An' she spak out wi' pride, 
An' she wad send the sodger youth 

Whatever might betide. 

For the auld guidman o' Lon'on court 

She didna care a pin, 
But she wad send the sodger youth 

To greet his eldest son. 

Then up sprang Bess o' Annandale : 

A deadly aith she's ta'en, 
That she wad vote the border Knight, 

Tho' she should vote her lane. 

For far afif fowls hae feathers fair. 
An' fools o' change are farin : 

But I hae tried the border Knight, 
I'll try him yet again. 

Says auld black Joan frae Creighton 
peel, 

A Carlin stoor and grim, 
The auld guidman or young guidman, 

For me may sink or swim ! 

For fook may freit o' right and wrang. 
While knaves laugh them to scorn : 

But the sodgers' friends hae blawn the 
best, 
Sae he shall bear the horn. 

Then whisky Jean spak o'er her drink, 

Ye weel ken kimmers a' 
The auld guidman o' Lon'on couri, 

His back's been at the wa.' 

And monie a friend that kiss'd his caup, 

Is now a frammit wight ; 
But it's ne'er sae wi' whisky Jean, — 

We'll send the border Knight. 

Then slow raise Marjorie o' the Lochs, 
And wrinkled was her brow ; 

H-er ancient weed was russet gray, 
Her auld Scots bluid was true. 



There's some great folks set light by me, 

I set as light by them ; 
But I will send to Lon'on town, 

Wha I lo'e best at hame. 

So how this weighty plea will end, 

Nae mortal wight can t?ell ; 
God grant the King and ilka man 

May look weel to himsel' ! 

THE DEUK'S DANG O'ER MY 
DADDIE. 

The bairns gat out wi' an unco shout, 

The deuk's dang o'er my daddie, O ! 
Th6 fient ma care, quo' the feirie auld 
wife. 

He was but a paidlin body, O ! 
He paidles out, and he paidles in. 

An' he paidles late and early, O ; 
This seven lang years I hae lien by his 
side. 

An' he is but a fusionless carlie, O. 

O haud your tongue, my. feirie auld 
wife, 

haud your tongue now, Nansie, : 
I've seen the day, and sae hae ye. 

Ye wadna been sae donsie, O ; 
I've seen the day ye butter'd my brose, 

And cuddl'd me late and earlie, O ; 
JBut downa do's come o'er me now, 

And, oh,. I find it sairly, O ! 



THE LASS THAT MADE THE 
BED TO ME. 

When Januar' wind was blawing cauld, 
As to the north. I took my way, 

The mirksome night did me enfauld, 
I knew na where to lodge till day. 

By my good luck a maid I met, 
Just in the middle o' my care ; 

And kindly she did me invite 
To walk into a chamber fair. 

I bow'd fu' low' unto this maid. 
And thank'd her for her courtesie ; 

I bow'd fu' low unto this maid. 
And bade her mak a bed to me. 



250 



THERE WAS A BONIE LASS. 



She made the bed baith large and wide, 
Wi' twa white hands she spread it 
down ; 
She put the cup to her rosy lips. 

And drank, ' Young man, now sleep 
ye soun.' 

She snatch'd the candle in her hand. 
And frae my chamber went wi' speed ; 

But I call'd her quickly back again 
To lay some mair below my head. 

A cod she laid below my head. 
And served me wi' due respect ; 

And to salute her wi' a kiss, 
I put my arms about her neck. 

* Hand aff your hands, young man,' 
she says, 
* And dinna sae uncivil be : 
If ye hae Onie love for me, 

wrang na my virginitie ! ' 

'Her hair was like the links o' gowd, 
Her teeth were like the ivorie ; 

Her cheeks like lilies dipt in wine, 
The lass that made the bed to me. 

Her bosom was the driven snaw, 
Twa drifted heaps sae fair to see ; 

Her limbs the polish'd marble stane, 
The lass that made the bed to me. 

I kiss'd her owre and owre again, 
And aye she wist na what to say ; 

I laid her between me and the wa', — 
The lassie thought na lang till day. 

Upon the morrow when we rose, 

1 thank'd her for her courtesie ; 

But aye she blush'd, and aye she sigh'd, 
And said, ' Alas ! ye've ruin'd me.' 

I clasp'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne. 
While the tear stood twinkling in her 
ee ; 

I said, ' My lassie, dinna cry, 
For ye ay shall make the bed to me.' 

She took her mither's Holland sheets. 
And made them a' in sarks to me : 

Blythe and merry may she be, 
The lass that made the bed to me. 



The bonie lass made the bed to me. 
The braw lass made the bed to me : 

I'll ne'er forget till the day I die. 
The lass that made the bed to me ! 



THE UNION. 

Tune — 'Suck a parcel of rogues in a nation.^ 

Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame, 

Fareweel our ancient glory ! 
Fareweel even to the Scottish name, 

Sae fam'd in martial stoiy ! 
Now Sark rins o'er the Solway sands. 

And Tweed rins to the ocean, 
To mark where England's province 
stands ; 

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. 

What guile or force could not subdue. 

Through many warlike ages, 
Is wrought now by a coward few. 

For hireling traitors' wages. 
The English steel we could disdain, 

Secure in valour's station, 
But English gold has been our bane ; 

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation ! 

O would, or had 1 seen the day 

That treason thus could sell us, 
My auld grey head had lien in clay, 

Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace ! 
But pith and power, till my last hour 

I'll mak this declaration. 
We're bought and sold for English gold : 

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation ! 



THERE WAS A BONIE LASS. 

There was a bonie lass, and a bonie, 
bonie lass. 
And she lo'ed her bonie laddie dear ; 
Till war's loud alarms tore her laddie 
frae her arms, 
Wi' monie a sigh and tear. 

Over sea, over shore, where the cannons 
loudly roar, 
He still was a stranger to fear : 
And nocht could him quell, or his 
bosom assail. 
But the bonie lass he lo'ed sae dear. 



CRAIGIE'BURN- WOOD. 



251 



MY HARRY WAS A GALLANT 
GAY. 

Tvne.—* Highla>ider''s lament* 

My Harry was a gallant gay, 
Fu' stately strade he on the plain f 

But now he's banish'd far away, 
I'll never see him back again. 

CHORUS. 

fbr him back again, 
O for hijn back again, 

1 wad gie a* Knockhaspie's land. 
For Highland Harry back again. 



When a' the lave gae to their 
bed, 
I wander dowie up the glen ; 
I sit me down and greet my fill, 
And ay I wish him back again. 
O for him, &c. 

O were some villains hangit high. 
And ilka body had their ain, 

Then I might see the joyfu' sight, . 
My Highland Harry back again } 
O for him, &c. 



TIBBIE DUNBAR. 

Tune — ' yohnny M'GilL' 

O WILT thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar? 

wilt thou go' wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar \ 
Wilt thou ride on a horse, or be drawn in a car. 
Or walk by my side, O sweet Tibbie Dunbar ? 

1 care na thy daddie, his lands and his money, 
I care na thy kin, sae high and sae lordly : 
But say thou wilt hae me for better for waur, 
And come in thy coatie, sweet Tibbie Dunbar. 

WEE WILLIE. 

Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet ; 

Peel a willow-wand, to be him boots and jacket : 

The rose upon the briar will be him trouse and doublet. 

The rose upon the briar will be him trouse and doublet ! 

Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet ; 

Twice a lily flower will be him sark and cravat ; 

Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet, 

Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet. 



CRAIGIE-BURN-WOOD. 

CHORUS. 

Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, 
dearie. 

And O to be lying beyond thee, 
O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep. 

That's laid in the bed beyond thee. 

Sweet closes the evening on Craigie- 
burn-wood, 
And blythely awakens the morrow ; 
But the pride of the spring in the Craigie- 
burn-wood 
Can yield to mc nothing but sorrow. 
Beyond, thee, &c. 



I see the spreading leaves and flowers, 
I hear the wild birds singing ; 

But pleasure they hae nane for me, 
While care my heart is wringing. 
Beyond thee, &c. 

I canna tell, I maun na tell, 

I dare na for your anger; 
But secret love will break my heart 

If I conceal it langer. 
Beyond thee, &g. 

I see thee gracefu', straight and tall, 
I see thee sweet and bonie. 

But oh, what will my tonnents be, 
If thou refuse thy Johnie ! 
Beyond thee, &.C, 



252 



AS I WAS A WANDERING. 



To see thee in anither's arms, ♦ 
In love to lie and languish, 

'Twad be my dead, that will be seen, 
My heart wad burst wi* anguish. 
Beyond thee, &c. 

But, Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine, 
Say, thou lo'es nane before me ; 

An' a' my days o' life to come, 
I'll gratefully adore thee. 
Beyond thee, &c. 



HERE'S HIS HEALTH IN 
WATER ! 

Tune — ' The job of journey-work.^ 

Altho' my back be at the wa', 

And tho' he be the fautor ; 
Altho' my back be at the wa'. 

Yet, here's his health in water I 
O ! wae gae by hii wanton sides, 

Sae brawlie he could flatter ; 
Till for his sake I'm slighted sair. 

And dree the kintra clatter. 
But tho' my back be at the wa'. 

And tho' he be the fautor ; 
But tho' my back' be at the wa', 

Yet, here's his health in water ! 



AS DOWN THE BURN THEY 
TOOK THEIR WAY. 

As down the bum they took their way. 
And thro' the flowery dale ; 

His cheeks to hers he aft did lay, 
And love was ay the tale. 

With 'Mary, when shall we return. 

Sic pleasure to renew ? ' 
Quoth Mary, ' Love, I like the burn, 

And ay shall follow you.' 

LADY ONLIE. 
Tune — ' Ruffiatis rant.' 

A' the lads o' Thornie-bank, 

When they gae to the shore o' Bucky, 
They'll step in an' tak' a pint 
Wi' Lady Onlie, honest Lucky ! 
Ladie Onlie, honest Lucky, 

Brews good ale at shore o' Bucky; 
I wish her sale for her gude ale. 
The best on a' the shore o' Bucky. 

Her house sae bien, her curch sae clean, 

I wat she is a dainty chucky ; 
And cheerlie blinks the ingle-gleed 
Of Lady Onlie, honest Lucky ! 
Lady Onlie, honest Lucky, 

Brews gude ale at shore o' Bucky ; 
I wish her sale for her gude ale, 
The best on a' the shore o' Bucky. 



AS I WAS A WANDERING. 

Tune — * Rinn meudial mo luhealladh.' 

As I was a wand'ring ae midsummer e'enin', 

The pipers and youngsters were making their game ; 

Amang them I spied my faithless fause lover, 
Which bldd a' the wounds o' my dolour again. 

Weel, since he has left me, may pleasure gae wi' him ; 

I may be distress'd, but I winna complain ; 
I flatter my fancy I may get anither. 

My heart it shall never be broken for ane. 

I could na get sleeping till dawin' for grcetin'. 

The tears trickled down like the hail and the rain ; 

Had I na got greetin', my heart wad a broken, 
For, oh ! love forsaken 's a tormenting pain. 



COME BOAT ME O'ER TO CHARLIE. 



^SJ 



Altho* he has left me for greed o' the siller, 
I dinna envy him the gains he can win ; 

I rather wad bear a' the lade o' my sorrow 
Than ever hae acted sae faithless to him. 

Weel, since he has left me, may pleasure gae wi' him, 
I may be distress'd, but I winna complain ; 

I flatter my fancy I may get anither, 

My heart it shall never be broken for ane. 



BANNOCKS O' BARLEY. 

Tune—' The Killogie' 

Bannocks o' bear meal, 

Bannocks o' barley ; 
Here's to the Highlandman's 

Bannocks o' barley. 
Wha in a brulzie 

Will first cry a parley ? 
Never the lads wi' 

The bannocks o' barley. 

Bannocks o' bear meal, 

Bannocks o' barley ; 
Here's to the lads wi' 

The bannocks o' barley ; 
Wha in his wae-days 

Were loyal to Charlie? 
Wha but the lads wi' 

The bannocks o' barley. 



OUR THRISSLES FLOURISHED 
FRESH AND FAIR. 

Tune — * Awa Whigs, aivn.'' 

CHORUS. 
Awa Whigs, awa ! 

Awa Whigs, awa ! 
Ye're but a pack o' traitor louiis, 

Ye'll do nae good at a*. 

Our thrissles flourish'd fresh and fair, 
And bonie bloom'd our roses ; 

But Whigs came like a frost in June, 
And wither'd a' our posies. 

Our ancient crown's fa'n in the dust— 
Deil blin' them wi' the stoure o't ; 

And write their names in his black 
beuk, 
Wha gae the Whigs the power o't. 



Our sad decay in Church and State 

Surpasses my descriving ; 
The Whigs came o'er us for a curse, 

And we hae done with thriving. 

Grim vengeance lang has ta'en a nap, 
But we may see him wauken ; 

Gude help the day when royal heads 
Are hunted like a maukin. 

Awa Whigs, awa ! 

Awa Whigs, awa ! 
Ye're but a pack o' traitor loans, 

Ye'll do nae gude at a'. 

peg-a-ramsey; 

Tune — ^Cmddis the e'enin' blast.' 

Cauld is the e'enin' blast 
O' Boreas o'er the pool, 

And dawin' it is dreary 

When birks are bare at Yule. 

O bitter blaws the e'enin' blast 
•When bitter bites the frost, 

And in the mirk and dreary drift 
The hills and glens are lost. 

Ne'er sae murky blew the night 
That drifted o'er the hill, 

But bonie Peg-a-Rarnsey 
Gat grist to her mill. 



COME BOAT ME O'ER TO 

CHARLIE. 

Tune — ^O'er the water to Charlie.^ 

Come boat me o'er, come row mc o'er. 
Come boat me o'er to Charlie ; 

I'll gie John Ross another bawbee, 
To boat me o'er to Charlie. 



254 



TIIK LASS OF ECCLEFECHAN. 



We'll o'er the water and o'er tlie 
sea, 
We'll o'er the water to Cliarlie ; 
Come weal, come woe, we'll gather 
and go, 
And live or die wi* Charlie. 

I lo'e weel my Charlie's name, 
Tho' some there be abhor him : 

But O, to see auld Nick gaun hame, 
And Charlie's faes before him ! 

I swear and vow by moon and stars, 

And sun tliat shines so early, 
If I had twenty thousand lives, 
I'd die as aft for Charlie. 

We'll o'er the water and o'er the 
sea, 
We'll o'er the water to Charlie ; 
Come weal, come woe, we'll gather 
and go, 
And live or die with Charlie ! 



BRAW LADS OF GALLA 

WATER. 

Tune-' Galla Water: 

CHORUS. 

Braw, braw lads of Galla Water- ; 

O braw lads of Galla Water ! 
I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee, 

And follow my love through the 
water, 

Sae fair her hair, sae brent her brow, 
Sae bonie blue her een, my dearie ; 

Sae white her teeth, sae sweet her mou', 
The mair I kiss she's ay my dearie. 

O'er yon bank and o'er yon brae. 

O'er yon moss amang the heather ; 
I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee, 

And follow my love through the water. 

Down amang the broom, the broom, 

Down amang the broom, my dearie. 
The lassie lost a silken snood, 

That cost her mony a blirt and bleary. 
Braw, braw lads of Galla Water ; 

O braw lads of Galla Water : 
I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee, 
And follow my love through the 
water. 



COMING THROUGH THE RYE. 

Tune — 'Comiug through the rye.' 

Coming through the rye, poor body, 

Coming through the rye, 
She draiglet a' her petticoatie, 

Coming through the rye. 
Jenny's a' wat, poor body, 

Jenny's seldom dry ; 
She draiglet a' her petticoatie. 

Coming through the rye. 

Gin a body meet a body — 
Coming through the rye ; 

Gin a body kiss a body — 
Need a body cry ? 

Gin a body meet a body 

Coming through the glen. 
Gin a body kiss a body — 

Need the world ken ? 
Jenny 's a' wat, poor body ; 

Jenny's seldom dry; 
She draiglet a' her petticoatie, 

Coming through the rye. 



THE LASS OF ECCLEFECHAN. 

Tune—' Jncky Lntin: 

Gat ye me, O gat ye me, 

O gat ye me wi' naething ? 
Rock and reel, and spinnin' wheel, 

A mickle quarter basin. 
Bye attour, my gutcher has 

A hich house and a laigh ane, 
A' forbye, my bonie sel', 

The toss of Ecclefechan. 

haud your tongue now, Luckie Laing, 

haud your tongue and jauner ; 

1 held the gate till you I met. 

Syne I began to wander : 
I tint my whistle and my sang, 

1 tint my peace and pleasure ; 

But your green graff, now, Luckie 
Laing, 
Wad airt me to my treasure. 



HER DAD DIE FORBAD. 



255 



THE SLAVE'S LAMEN T. 

It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthral, 

For the lands of Virginia, O ; 
Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more, 

And alas I am weary, weary, O ! 

Ail on that charming coast is no bitter snow or frost, 

Like the lAnds of Virginia, O ; 
There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow, 

And alas I am weary, weary, O ! 

The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear. 

In the lands of Virginia, O ; 
And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear, 

And alas I am weary, weary, O ! 



HAD I THE WYTE. 

Tune—' "Had I the luyte she hade me.* 

Had I the wyte, had I the wyte, 

Had I the wyte she bade me ; 
She watch'd me by the hie-gate side. 

And up the loan she shaw'd me ; 
And when I wadna venture in, 

A coward loon she ca'd me ; 
Had kirk and state been in the gate, 

I lighted when she bade me. 

Sae craftilie she took me ben, 

And bade me make nae clatter ;' 
' P'or our ramgunshoch glum gudeman 

Is out and owre the water : ' 
Whae'er shall say I wanted grace. 

When I did kiss and dawte her, 
Let him be planted in my place, 

Syne say I was the fautor. 

Could I for shame, could I for shame. 

Could I for shame refused her t 
And wadna manhood been to blame, 

Had I unkindly used her ?• 
He clawed her wi' the ripplin-kame, 

And blue and bluidy bruised her ; 
When sic a husband was frae hame,' 

What wife but had excused her?* 

I dighted ay her een sae blue, 

And bann'd the cruel randy ; 
And weel I wat her willing mou' 

Was e'en like sugar-candy. 
A gl cam in -shot it was I trow, 

I lighted on the Monday ; 
But I cam through the Tysday's dew. 

To wanton Willie's brandy. 



HEE BALOU. 

Tune—' The Highland baton.* 

Hee balou ! my sweet wee Donald, 
Picture o' the great Clanronald*; 
Brawlie kens our wanton chief 
Wha got my young Highland thief. 

Leeze me on thy bonie craigie. 
An* thou live, thou'll steal a naigie : 
Travel the country thro' and thro*, 
And bring hame a Carlisle cow. 

Thro' the Lawlands, o'er the border, 
Weel, my babie, may thou furder ; 
HeiTy the louns o* the laigh countree, 
Syne to the Highlands -hame to me. * 

HER DADDIE FORBAD; 

Tune — ' JumfhC John* 

Her daddie forbad, her minnie forbad ; 

Forbidden she wadna be : 
She wadna trow't, the browst she brew'd 
Wad taste sae bitterlie. 
The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John 

Beguiled the bonie lassie, 
The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John 
Beguiled the bonie lassie. 

A cow and a cauf, a yowe and a hauf, 

And thretty gude shillin's and three ; 
A vera gude tocher, a co'tter-man's 
dochter, 
The lass with the bonie black ee. 
The lang lad they ca* Jumpin' John 

Beguiled the bonie lassie, 
The lang lad they ca' Jumpin John 
Beguiled the bonie lassie. 



256 



THE JOYFUL WIDOWER. 



HERE'S TO' THY HEALTH, MY 

BONIE LASS. 

Tune — * Laggan Burn.' 

Here's to thy health, my bonie lass, 
Gude night, and joy be wi' thee ; 

I'll come nae mair to thy bower door, 
To tell thee that I lo'e thee. 

dinna think, my pretty pink, 
But I can live without thee : 

1 vow and swear I dinna care 
How lang ye look about ye. 

Thou'rt ay sae free informing me 

Thou hast nae mind to marry ; 
I'll be as free informing thee 

Nae time hae I. to tarry. 
I ken thy friends try ilka means, 

Frae wedlock to delay thee ; 
Dependtng.on some higher chance — 

But fortune may betray thee. 

I ken they scorn my low estate, 

But that does never grieve me ; 
But I'm as free as any he, 

Sma' siller will relieve me. 
I count my health my greatest wealth, 

Sae lang as I'll enjoy it : 
I'll fear nae scant, I'll bode nae want, 

As lang's I get employment. 

But far aff fowls hae feathers fair. 

And ay until ye try them : 
Tho' they seem fair, still have a care, 

They may prove waur than T am. 
But at twal at night, when the moon 
shines bright, 

My dear, I'll come and see thee ; 
For the man that lo'es his mistress weel 

Nae travel makes him wcaiy. 



HEY, THE DUSTY MILLER. 

Tune—' T/ie Dusty Miller.' 

Hey, the dusty miller, 

And his dusty coat ; 

He will win a shilling. 

Or he spend a groat. 

Dusty was the coat. 

Dusty was the colour, 
Dusty was the kiss 

That I got frae the miller. 



Hey, the dusty miller. 
And his dusty sack ; 
Leeze me on the calling 
Fills the dusty peck. 
Fills the dusty peck, 

Brings the dusty siller ; 
I wad gie my coatie 
For the dusty miller. 



THE CARDIN' O'T. 

TvnK—* Salt Fish and Dumplijigs.^ 

I CO FT a stane o' haslock woo'. 

To make a coat to Johnny o't ; 
For Johnny is my only jo, 
I lo'e him best of ony yet. 
The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't ; 

The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't 
When ilka ell cost me a groat, 
The tailor staw the lynin o't. 

For though his locks be lyart gray, 

And though his brow be beld aboon -,; 
Yet I hae seen him on a day, 
The pride of a' the parishen.. 
The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't, 

The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't ; 
When ilka ell cost me a groat. 
The tailor staw the lynin o't. 



THE JOYFUL WIDOWER. 

Tune—' Maggy Lander* 

I MARRIED with a scolding wife 

The fourteenth of November ; 
She made me weary of my life, 

By one unruly member. 
Long did I bear the heavy yoke, 

And many griefs attended ; 
But, to my comfort be it spoke, 

Now, now her life is ended. 

We lived full one-and-twenty years 

A man anfl wife together ; 
At length from me her course she steer'd. 

And gone I know not whither : 
Would I could guess, I do profess, 

I speak, and do not flatter. 
Of all the women in the world, 

I never could come at her. 



IT IS NA, JEAN, THY BONIE FACE. 



^ii 



Her body is bestowed well, 

A handsome grave does hide her j. 
But sure her soul is not in hell. 

The deil would ne'er abide her. 
I rather think she is aloft, 

And imitating thunder ; 
For why, — methinks I hear her voice 

Tearinir the clouds asunder. 



THENIEL MENZIE'S BONIE 

MARY. 

Tune—' The Ruffian's rant: 

In coming by the brig o' Dye, 

At Darlet we a blink did tarry ; 
As day was dawin in the sky 

We drank a health to bonie Mary. 
Theniel Menzie's bonie Mary, 

Theniel Menzie's bonie Mary ; 
Charlie Gregor tint his plaidie, 
Kissin' Theniel' s bonie Mary. 

Her een sae bright, her brow sae white, 
Her hafifet locks as brown's a berry. 
Ah' ay they dimpled wi' a smile 
The rosy cheeks o' bonfe Mary. 
Theniel Menzie's bonie Mary, 

Theniel Menzie's bonie Mary ; 
Charlie Gregor tint his plaidie, 
Kissin' Theniel's bonie Mary. 

We lap an' danced the lee-lang day. 

Till piper lads were wae an' weary. 
But Charlie gat the spring -to pay 
For kissin' Theniel s bonie Mary. 
Theniel Menzie's bonie Mary, 

Theniel Menzie's bonie Mary ; 
Charlie Gregor tint his plaidie, 
Kissin' Theniel'-s bonie Mary. 



THE FAREWELL. 

Tune — *// was a' /or our rigJdfu' King.* 

It was a' for our rlghtfu' King, 

We left fair Scotland's strand ; 
It was a' for our rightfu' King 

We e'er saw Irish land, 
My dear ; 

We e'er saw Irish land. 

B 



Now a' is done that men can do^ 

And a* is done in vain j 
My love and native land farewell. 

For I maun cross the main, 

, My dear ; 

For I maun cross the main. 

He turn'd him right and round about 

Upon the Irish shore; 
And gae his bridle-reins a shake, 

With adieu for evermore, 
My dear ; 

With adieu for evermore. 

The sodger from the wars returns, 

The sailor irae the main ; 
But I hae parted frae my love. 

Never to meet again. 

My dear ; 

Never to meet again. 

When day is gane, and night is come. 
And a' folk bound to sleep ; 

I think on him that's far awa', 
The lee-lang night, and weep, 

My dear ; 
The lee-lang night, and weep. 



IT IS NA, JEAN, THY BONIE 
^ FACE. 

Tune—* The Maid's Complaint: 

It is na, Jean, thy bonie face, 

Nor shape that I admire, 
Although thy beauty and thy grace 

Might weel awake desire. 
Something, in ilka part o' thee^ 

To praise, to love, I find ; 
But dear as is thy form to me. 

Still dearer is thy mind. 

Nae mair ungen'rous wish I hae, 

Nor stronger in my breast. 
Than if I canna mak thee sae, 

At least to see thee blest. 
Content am I, if Heaven shall give 

But happiness to thee : 
And as wi' thee I'd wish to live. 

For thee I'd bear to die. 



25S 



MY HEART IVAS ANCE. 



JAMIE, COME TRY ME. 

TvuF.—' ya7nie, come try me. 

CHORUS. 
Jamie, come try me, , 

Jamie, come try me ; 
If thou would win my love, 
Jamie, come try me. 

If thou should ask my love, 

Could I deny thee ? 
If thou would win my love, 

Jamie, come try me. 

If thou should kiss me, love, 

Wha could espy thee ? 
If thou wad be my love, 

Jamie, come try me. 
Jamie, come try me &c. 

LANDLADY, COUNT THE 
LAWIN. 

Tune— '//^j/ hitti, taiti.' 

Landlady, count-the lawin, 
The day is near the dawin ; 
Ye're a' blind drunk, boys, 
And I'm but jolly fou. 

Hey tutti, taiti, 

How tutti, taiti — 

Wha's fou now ? 

Cog an' ye were ay fou, 
Cog an' ye were ay fou, 
I wad sit arid sing to you 
If ye were ay fou. 

Weel may ye a' be^! 
Ill may we never see ! 
God bless the King, boys. 
And the companie ! 

Hey tutti, taiti. 

How tutti, taiti — 

'Wha's fou now ? 

MY LOVE SHE'S BUT A LASSIE 
YET. 

Tune—' Lady BadinscotKs reel.' 

My love she's but a lassie yet ; 

My love she's but a lassie yet ; 
We'll let her stand a year or twa, 

She'll no be half sae saucy yet. 



I rue the day I sought her, O, 
I rue the day I sought her, O ; 

Wha gets her needs na say she's woo'd, 
But he may say he's bought her, O ! 

Come, draw a drap o' the best o't yetj 

Come, draw a drap o' the best o't yet ; 
Gae seek for pleasure where ye will, 

But here I never miss'd it yet. 
We're a' dry wi' drinking o't. 

We're a' dry wi' drinking o't ; 
The minister kiss'd the fiddler's wife, 

An' could na preach for thinkin' o't. 



MY HEART WAS ANCE. 

Tune—' To the weavers gin ye go* 

My heart was ance as blythe and free 

As simmer days were lang. 
But a bonie, westlin weaver lad 
Has gart me change my sang. 
To the weavers gin ye go, fair 
maids. 
To the weavers gin ye go ; 
I rede you right gang ne'er at 
night. 
To the weavers gin ye go. 

My mither sent me to the town, 

To warp a plaiden wab ; 
But the weary, weary warpin o't 

Has gart me sigh and sab. 

A bonie westlin weaver lad 

Sat working at his loom ; 
He took my heart as wi' a net. 

In every knot and thrum. 

I sat beside my warpin-wheel. 

And ay I ca'd it roun' ; 
But every shot and every knock, 

My heart it gae a stoun. 

The moon was sinking in the west 

Wi' visage pale and wan, 
As my bonie westlin weaver lad 

Convoy'd me through the glen. 



The CAPTAIN'S ladv. 



^50 



But what was said, or what was done, 

Shame fa' me gin I tell ; 
But oh ! I fear the kintra soon 

Will ken as weel's mysel. 

To the weavers gin ye go, fair maids, 
To the weavers gin ye go ; 

I rede you right gang ne'er at night, 
To the weavers gin ye go. 



LOVELY DAVIES. 

Tune - ' JSIiss Muir. ' 

HOW shall I, unskilfu', try 
The poet's occupation, 

The tunefu' powers, in happy hours, 

That whisper inspiration ? 
Even' they maun dare an effort mair. 

Than aught they ever gave us. 
Or they rehearse, in equal verse, 

The charms o' lovely Davies. 

Each eye it cheers, when she appears, 

Like Phoebus in the morning. 
When past the shower, and ev'ry'flower 

The garden is adorning. 
As the wretch looks o'er Siberia's shore, 

When winter-bound the wave is ; 
Sae droops our heart when we maun part 

Frae charming lovely Davies. 

Her smile's a gift, frae 'boon the lift. 

That maks us mair than princes ; 
A scepter'd hand, a King's command, 

Is in her darting glances : 
The man in arms, 'gainst female charms. 

Even he her willing slave is ; 
He hugs his chain, and owns the reign 

Of conquering, lovely JDavies. 

My Muse to dream of such a theme, 
Her feeble powers surrender ; 

The eagle's gaze alone surveys 
The sun's meridian splendour : 

1 wad in vain essay the strain. 
The deed too daring brave is ; 

I'll drap the lyre, and mute admire 
The charms o* lovely Davies. 



KENMURE'S ON AND AWA. 

Tune — ' O Kenmure 's on and awa, Willie. 

O Kenmure's on and awa, Willie ! 

O Kenmure's on and awa ! 
And Kenmure's lord 's the bravest lord 

That ever Galloway saw. 

Success to Kenmure's band, Willie ! 

Success to Kenmure's band ; 
There's no a heart that fears a Whig 

That rides by Kenmure's hand. 

Here's Kenmure's health in wine, Willie ! 

Here's Kenmure's health in wine ; 
There ne'er was a coward o' Kenmure's 

Nor yet o' Gordon's line. [blude, 

O Kenmure's lads are men, Willie ! 

O Kenmure's lads are men ; 
Their hearts and swords are metal true — 

And that their faes shall ken. 

They'll live or die wi* fame, Willie ! 

They'll live or die wi' fame ; 
But soon, wi' sounding victorie, 

May Kenmure's lord come hame. 

Here's him that's far awa, Willie ! 

Here's him that's far awa ; 
And here's the flower that I love best — 

The rose that's like the snaw ! 

THE CAPTAIN'S LADY. 
Tune — ' O motmt and go.* 
CHORUS. 
O mount and go, 

Mount and make you ready ; 
O mount and go, 

And be the Captain's Lady. 

When the drums do beat, 

And the cannons rattle. 
Thou shalt sit in state. 

And see thy love in battle. 

When the vanquish'd foe 
, Sues for peace and quiet, 
.To the shades we'll go. 
And in love enjoy it. 

O mount and go, 

Mount and make you ready ; 
mount and go, 

And be the Captain's Lady. 



2^ 



MERRY HAE I BEEN TEETHIN* A HECKLE. 



LADY MARY ANN. 

Tune — ' Cragtown's growing. ' 

O, Lady Mary Ann 

Looks o'er the castle wa*, 
She saw three bonie boys 

Playing at the ba' ; 
The youngest he was 

The flower amang them a*; 
My bonie laddie 's young, 

But he's growin' yet. 

O father! O father! 

An' ye think it fit, 
We'll send him a year 

To the college yet : 
We'll sew a green ribbon 

Round about his hat, 
And that will let them ken 

He's to marry yet. 

Lady Mary Ann 

Was a flower i' the dew, 
Sweet was its smell, 

And bonie was its hue ! 
And the langer it blossom'd 

The sweeter it grew ; 
For the lily in the bud 

Will be bonier yet. 

Young Charlie Cochran 

Was the sprout of an aik ; 
Bonie and bloomin* 

And straught was its make : 
The sun took delight 

To shine for its sake, 
And it will be the brag 

O' the forest yet. 

The simmer is gane 

When the leaves they were green, 
And the days are awa 

That we hae seen : 
But far better days 

I trust will come again, 
For my bonie laddie's young, 

But he's growin' yet. 



THE HIGHLAND WIDOW'S 
LAMENT. 

Oh ! I am come to the low countrie, 

Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 
Without a penny in my purse, 

To buy a meal to me. 

It was nae sae in the Highland hills, 

Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 
Nae woman in the country wide 

Sae happy was as me. 

For then I had a score o' kye, 

Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 
Feeding on yon hills so high, 

And giving milk to me. 

And there I had three score o' yowes, 

Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 
Skipping on yon bonie knowes, 

And casting woo' to me. 

I was the happiest of the clan, 

Sair, sair may I repine ; 
For Donald was the brawest lad, 

And Donald he was mine: 

Till Charlie Stewart cam at last, 

Sae far to set us free ; 
My Donald's arm was wanted then, 

For Scotland and for me. 

Their waefu' fate what need I tell, 
Right to the wrang did yield : 

My Donald and his country fell 
Upon Culloden's field. 

Oh ! I am come to the low countrie, 

Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 
Nae woman in the world wide 

Sae wretched now as me. 



MERRY HAE I BEEN TEETHIN' A HECKLE. 

Tune — ' Lord Breadalbane^ s March* 

O MERRY hae I been teethin' a heckle, 
And merry hae I been shapin' a spoon ; 

O merry hae I been cloutin a kettle, 

And kissin' my Katie when a' was done. 



O MALLY'S MEEK, M ALLY'S SWEET 



261 



O a* the lang day I ca' at my hammer, 
An' a' the lang day I whistle and sing, 

A' the lang night I cuddle my kimmer. 
An' a' the lang night as happy's a King. 

Bitter in dool I lickit my winnins, 

O' marrying Bess, to gie her a slave : 
Bless'd be the hour she cool'd in her linnens, 

And blythe be the bird that sings on her grave. 
Come to my arms, my Katie, my Katie, 

An' come to my arms, and kiss me again ! 
Drunken or sober, here's to thee, Katie ! 

And bless'd be the day I did it again. 



RATTLIN', ROARIN' WILLIE. 
Tune— ♦/?«////«,• roarite Willie.* 

O RATTLIN', roarin' Willie, 

O, he held to the fair, 
An' for to sell his fiddle, 

An' buy some other vi^are ; 
But parting wi' his fiddle, 

The saut tear blin't his ee ; 
And rattlin', roarin' Willie, 

Ye're welcome hame to me ! 

O Willie, come sell your fiddle, 
O sell your fiddle sae fine ; 



O Willie, come sell your fiddle, 

And buy a pint o' vi'ine ! 
If I should sell my fiddle, 

The warl' would think I was mad ; 
For mony a ran tin' day 

My fiddle and I hae had. 

As I cam by Cl'ochallan, 

I cannily keekit ben — 
Rattlin', roarin' Willie 

Was sitting at yon board en', 
Sitting at yon board en'. 

And amang guid companie ; 
Rattlin', roarin' Willie, 

Ye're welcome hame to me ! 



O M ALLY'S MEEK, M ALLY'S SWEET. 

O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet, 

Mally's modest and discreet, 
Mally's rare, Mally's fair, 

Mally's every way complete. 
As I was walking up the street, 

A barefit maid I chanced to meet ; 
But O the road was very hard 

For that fair maiden's tender feet. 

It were mair meet that those fine feet 
Were weel laced up in silken shoon, 

And 'twere more fit that she sliould sit 
Within yon chariot gilt aboon. 

Her yellow hair, beyond compare, 

Comes trinkling down her swan-white neck, 
And her two eyes, Uke stars in skies, 

Would keep a sinking ship frae wreck. 
O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet, 

Mally's modest and discreet, 
Mally's rare, Mally's fair, 

Mally's every way complete 



262 



THE FETE CHAMPETRE, 



SAE FAR AWA. 
Im-h^—' Dalkeith Maiden Bridge* 

O SAD and heavy should I part, 

But for her sake sae far awa ; 
Unknowing what my way may thwart 

My native land sae far awa. 
Thou that of a' things Maker art, 

That form'd this P'air sae far awa, 
Gie body strength, then I'll ne'er start 

At this my way sae far awa. 

How true is love to pure desert, 

So love to her, sae far awa : 
And nocht can heal my bosom's smart, 

While, oh ! she is sae far awa, 
Nane other love, nane other dart, 

I feel but her's, sae far awa ; 
But fairer never touch'd a heart 

Than her's, the fair sae far awa. 



O STEER HER UP. 

Tune—' O steer her up, and hand her gaun. ' 

O STEER her up, and hand her gaun— 

Her mother's at the mill, jo ; 
And gin she winna take a man, 

E'en let her take her will, jo : 
First shore her wi' a kindly kiss, 

And ca' another gill, jo, 
And gin she take the thing amiss. 

E'en let her flyte her fill, jo. 

O steer her up, and be na blate, 

An' gin she tak it ill, jo, 
Then lea'e the lassie till her fate. 

And time nae langer spill, jo : 
Ne'er break your heart for ae rebute, 

But think upon it still, jo ; 
Then gin the lassie winna do't, 

Ye'U fin' anither will, jo. 



O, WHAR DID YE GET. 
Tune — ' Bonie Dtindee* 

07 WHAR did ye get that hauver meal bannock ? 

O silly blind body, O dinna ye see ? 
I gat it frae a brisk young sodger laddie. 

Between Saint Johnston and bonie Dundee. 
O gin I saw the laddie that gae me't ! 

Aft has he doudled me on his knee ; 
May Heaven protect my bonie Scots laddie, 

And send him safe hame to his babie and me ! 

My blessin's upon thy sweet wee lippie, 

My blessin's upon thy bonie e'e brie ! 
Thy smiles are sae like my blythe sodger laddie, 

Thou's ay the dearer and dearer to me ! 
But I'll big a bower on yon bonie banks, 

Where Tay i-ins wimplin' by sae clear ; 
And I'll deed thee in the tartan sae fine. 

And mak thee a man like thy daddie dear. 

THE FETE CHAMPETRE. 

Tune—* Killiecrankie.' 



O WHA will to Saint Stephen's house. 

To do our errands there, man ? 
O wha will to Saint Stephen's house, 

O' th' merry lads of Ayr, man ? 
Or will we send a man-o'-law ? 

Or will we send a sodger ? 
Or him wha led o'er Scotland a* 

The meikle Ursa-Major ? 



Come, will ye court a noble lord, 

Or iDuy a score o' lairds, man ? 
For worth and honour pawn their word, 

Their vote shall be Glencaird's, man? 
Ane gies them coin, ane gies them wine, 

Anither gies them clatter ; 
Anbank, wha guess'd the ladies' taste, 

He gies a Fete Champetre. 



SIMMER'S A PLEASAMT TIME. 



263 



When Love and Beauty heard the news, 

The gay green-woods amang, man ; 
Where gathering flowers and busking 
bowers, 

They heard the blackbird's sang, 
man ; 
A vow, they seal'd it with a kiss 

Sir Politics to fetter, 
As their's alone, the patent-bliss, 

To hold a Fete Champetre. 

Then mounted Mirth, on gleesome wing, 

O'er hill and dale she flew, man ; 
Ilk wimpling burn, ilk 'crystal spring, 

'Ilk glen and shaw she knew, man : 
She summon'd every social sprite, 

That spoTts by wood or water. 
On th' bonie banks of Ayr, to meet, 

And keep this Fete Champetre. 

Cauld 'Boreas, wi' his boisterous crew, 

Were bound to stakes like kye, man; 
And Cynthia's car, o* silver fu', 

Clamb up the starry sky, man : 
Reflected beams dwell in the streams. 

Or down the current shatter ; 
The western breeze steals through the 
trees, 

To view this Fete Champetre. 

How many a robe sac gaily floats ! 

What sparkling jewels glance, man ! 
To Harmony's enchanting notes, 

As moves the mazy dance, man ! 
The echoing wood, the winding flood, 

Like Paradise did glitter. 
When angels met, at Adam's yett, 

To hold their Fete Champetre. 



When Politics came there, to mix 

And make his ether-stane, man ! 
He circled round the magic ground, 

But entrance found he nane, man ; 
He blush'd for shame, he quat his name, 

Forswore it, every letter, 
Wi' humble prayer to join and share 

This festive Fete Champetre. 



SIMMER'S A PLEASANT TIME. 
Tune— M^ vjaukin, O.' 

Simmer's a pleasant time, 
Flow'rs of ev'ry colour ; 
The water nns o'er the heugh, 
And I long for my true lover. 
Ay waukin O, 

Waukin still and wearie : 
Sleep I can get nane 
F'or thinking on my dearie. 

When I sleep I dream, 

When I wauk I'm eerie ; 
Sleep I can get nane 

For thinking on my dearie. 

Lanely night comes on, 

A* the lave are sleeping ,- 
I think on my bonie lad 

And I bleer my een with greetin*. 
Ay waukin O, 

Waukin still and wearie ; 
Sleep I can get nane 

For thinking on my dearie. 



THE ELUDE RED ROSE AT YULE MAY BLAW. 

Tune — * To daunton me.* 

The blude red rose at Yule may blaw, 
The simmer lilies bloom in snaw, 
The frost may freeze the deepest sea ; 
But an auld man shall never daunton'mc. 

To daunton me, and me sae young, 
Wi' his fause heart and flatt'ring tongue, 
That is the thing you ne'er .shall see ; 
For an auld man shall never daunton mc. 



264 



THE COOPER 0' CUDDIE. 



For a' his meal and a' his maut, 
For a' his fresh beef and his saut, 
For a' his gold and white monie. 
An auld man shall never daunton me. 

His gear may buy him kye and yowes, 
His gear may buy him glens and knowes ; 
But me he shall not buy nor fee, 
For an auld man shall never daunton me. 

He hirples twa fauld as he dow, 
Wi' his teethless gab and his auld beld pow, 
And the rain rains down frae his red bleer'd ee- 
That auld man shall never daunton me. 

To daunton me, and me sae young, 
Wi' his fause heart and flatt'ring tongue, 
That is the thing you ne'er shall see ; 
For an auld man shall never daunton me. 



THE HIGHLAND LADDIE. 

Tune — ' 1/ thou' It May me /air play.' 

The boniest lad that e'er I saw, 

Bonie laddie. Highland laddie, 
Wore a plaid and was fu' bravv, 

Bonie Highland laddie. 
On his head a bonnet blue, 

Bonie laddie. Highland laddie, 
His royal heart was firm and true, 

Bonie Highland laddie. 

Trumpets sound and cannons roar, 

Bonie lassie, Lawland lassie, 
And a' the hills wi' echoes roar, 

Bonie Lawland lassie. 
Glory, Honour, now invite, 

Bonie lassie, Lawland lassie. 
For Freedom and my King to fight, 

Bonie Lawland lassie. 

The sun a backward course shall take, 

Bonie laddie. Highland laddie, 
Ere aught thy manly courage shake ; 
Bonie Highland laddie, 
for yoursel procure renown, 
nie laddie, Highland laddie, 
l^or your lawful King his crown, 
Highland laddie ! 



THE COOPER O' CUDDIE. 

Tune — ' Bab at the bowster* 



The 



o' Cuddie cam here 



cooper 
awa, 
And ca'd the girrs out owre us a' — 
And our gude-wife has gotten a ca' 

That anger'd the silly gude-man, O. 
We'll hide the cooper behind the door. 
Behind the door, behind the door ; 
We'll hide the cooper behind the door, 
And cover him under a mawn, O. 

He sought them out, he sought them in, 
Wi*, Deil hae her ! and, Deil hae 

him ! 
But the body was sae doited and blin'. 
He wist na where he was gaun, O. 

They cooper'd at e'en, they cooper'd at 

morn, 
Till our gude-man has gotten the scorn ; 
On ilka brow she's planted a horn, 

And swears that they shall stan', O. 
We'll hide the cooper behind the door, 
Behind the door, behind the door ; 
We'll hide the cooper behind the door. 

And cover him under a mawn, O. 



THE TITHER MORN, 



265 



NITHSDALE'S WELCOME HAME. 



The noble Maxwells and their powers 

Are coming o'er the border, 
And they'll gae bigg Terreagle's towers. 

An' set them a' in order, 
And they declare Terreagle's fair. 

For their abode they choose it; 
There's no a heart in a* the land, 

But 's lighter at the news o't, 



Tho' stars in skies may disappear. 

And angry tempests gather ; 
The happy hour may soon be near 

That brings us pleasant weather : 
The weary night o' care and grief 

May hae a joyful morrow ; 
So dawning day has brought relief- 

Fareweel our night o' sorrow ! 



THE TAILOR. 

Tune—' Tke Tailor fell thro* the bed, thimbles dti a*.* 

The Tailor fell thro' the bed, .thimbles an' a*, 

The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an* a' ; 

The blankets were thin, and the sheets they were sma*, 

The iTailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an* a*. 

The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill, 
The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill ; 
The weather was cauld, and the lassie lay still, 
She thought that a tailor could do her nae ill. 

Gie me the groat again, canny young man ; 
Gie me the groat again, canny young man ; 
The day it is short, and the night it is lang, 
The dearest siller that evet I wan ! 

There's somebody weary wi' lying her lane ; 
There's somebody weary wi' lying her lane ; 
There's some that are dowie, I trow wa(J be fain 
To see the bit tailor come skippin' again. 

THE TITHER MORN. 



The tither morn. 

When I forlorn, 
Aneath an aik sat moaning, 

I did na trow, 

I'd see my Jo, 
Beside me, gain the gloaming. 

But he sae trig. 

Lap o'er the rig. 
And dawtingly did cheer me, 

When I, what reck, 

Did least expec'. 
To see my lad so near me. 

His bonnet he, 

A thought ajee, 
Cock'd sprush when first he clasp'd 
me ; 

And I, I wat, 

Wi' fainness grat, 
While in his grips he press^xi me, 



Deil tak' the war I 

I late and air, 
Hae wish'd since Jock departed ; 

But now as glad 

I'm wi' my lad, 
As short syne broken-hearted. 

Fu* aft at e'en 

Wi' dancing keen, 
When a' -were blythe and merry, 

I car'd na by, 

Sae sad was 1 
In absence o* my dearie. 

But, pi-aise be blest. 

My mind's at rest, 
I'm happy wi' my Johnny : 

At kirk and fair, 

I'se ay be there, 
And be 9.S canty '§ ony. 



266 THE CARLE OF KELLYBURM BRAES. . 

THE CARLE OF KELLYBURN BRAES. 

IVUE.—' Kellyl>Jirn braes.' 

There lived a carle on Kellyburn braes 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thymej, 

And he had a wife was the plague o' his days ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime, 

Ae day as the carle gaed up the lang. glen 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme), 

He met wi' the Devil ; says, * How do you fen?' 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 

I've got a bad wife, sir; that's a' my complaint* 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme), 
' For, saving your presence, to her ye're a saint ;' 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 

* It's neither your stot nor your staig I shall crave 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme), 

* But gie me your wife, man, for her I must have ; 

And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime, 

* O welcome, most kindly,' the blythe carle said 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme), 

* But if ye can match her, ye're waur nor ye're ca'd ; 

And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 

The Devil has got the auld wife on his back 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme). 

And, like a poor pedlar, he's carried his pack ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 

He's carried her hame to his ain hallan-door 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme). 

Syne bad her gae in, for a b — h and a w — e ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 

Then straight he makes fifty, the pick o' his band 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme), 

Turn out on her guard in the clap of a hand ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 

The carlin gaed thro' them like ony wud bear 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie with thyme), 

Whae'er she gat hands on came near her nae mair ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 

A reekit wee Devil looks over the wa* 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme), 

*0, help, master, help, or she'll ruin us a' ;* 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 



THERE WAS A LASS. ' ^67 



The Devil he swore by the edge o' his knife 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie with thyme), 

He pitied the man that was tied to a wife ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 

The Devil he swore by the kirk and the bell 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme), 

He was -not in wedlock, thank heav'n, but irt hell j 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime; 

Then Satan has travell'd again wi' his pack 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme), 

And to her auld husband he's carried her back ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue, is in prime. 

• I hae been a Devil the feck o' ray life * 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi* thyme), 

* But ne'er was in hell, till I met wi' a wife ; * 

And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. 



THERE WAS A LASS. 

Tune—* Duncan Davison* 

There was a lass, they ca'd her Meg, 

And she held o'er the moors to spin ; 
There was a lad that folio w'd her, 

They ca'd him Duncan Davison. 
The moor was driegh, and Meg was skiegh, 

■Her favour Duncan could na win ; 
For wi' the rock she wad him knock, 

And ay she shook the temper-pin. 

As o'er the moor they lightly foor, 

A burn was clear, a glen was green. 
Upon the banks they eased their shanks, 

And ay she set the wheel between : 
But Duncan swore a haly aith. 

That Meg should be a bride the morn; 
Then Meg took up her spinnin' graith. 

And flung them a' out o'er the burn. 

We'll big a house-r-a wee, wee house, 

And we will Hve like King and Queen, 
Sae blythe and merry we will be 

When ye set by the wheel at e'en. 
A man may drink and no be drunk ; 

A man may fight and no be slain ; 
A man may kiss a bonie lass. 

And ay be welcome back again. 



268 



THE CARLES OF DYSART. 



THE WEARY FUND O' TOW. 

Tune—' The weary pimd o* tow.'' 

The weaiy pund, the weary pund, 

The weary pund o' tow ; 
I think my wife will end her life 

Before she spin her tow. 
I bought my wife a stane o* lint 

As gude as e'er did grow ; 
And a' that she has made o' that, 

Is ae poor pund o' tow. 

There sat a bottle in a bole, 

Beyond the ingle low. 
And ay she took the tither souk 

To drouk the stowrie tow. 

Quoth I, For shame, ye dirty dame, 

Gae spin your tap o' tow ! 
She took the rock, and wi' a knock 

She brak it o'er my pow. 

At last her feet— I sang to see't — 
Gaed foremost o'er the knowe ; 
And or I wad anither jad, 
I'll wallop in a tow. 
The weary pund, the weary pund, 

The weary pund o' tow ! 
I think my wife will end her life 
Before she spin her tow. 



THE PLOUGHMAN. 

Tune — ' Up wi* the Ploughman.* 

The ploughman he's a bonie lad, 

His mind is ever true, jo, 
His garters knit jjelow his knee. 

His bonnet it is blue, jo. 

CHORUS. 

Then up wi't a', my ploughman lad, 
And hey, my merry ploughman ; 

Ofa' the trades that I do ken, 
Commend me to the ploughman. 

My ploughman he comes hame at e'en. 

He's aften wat and weary ; 
Cast off the wat, put on the dry. 

And gae to bed, my Dearie ! 
Up wi't a", &c. 



I will wash my ploughman's hose. 
And I will dress his o'erlay j 

I will mak my ploughman's bed. 
And cheer him late and early. 
Up wi't a', &c. 

I hae been east, I hae been west, 
I hae been at Saint Johnston, 

The boniest sight that e'er I saw 
Was the ploughman laddie dancin'. 
Up wi't a', &c. 

Snaw-white stockins on his legs. 
And siller buckles glancin' ; 

A gude blue bannet on his head, 
And O, but he was handsome ! 
Up wi't a*, &c. 

Commend me to the barn-yard. 
And the corn-mou', man; 

I never gat my coggie fou 
Jill I met wi' the ploughman. 
Up wi't a', &c. 



THE CARLES QF DYSART. 

Tune— '//<y, ca* thro*: 

Up wi' the carles of Dysart, 

And the lads o' Buckhaven, 
And the kimmers o' Largo, 
And the lasses o' Leven. 

Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro'. 

For we hae mickle ado ; 
Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro', 
For we hae mickle ado. 

We hae tales to tell. 

And we hae sangs to* sing ; 
We hae pennies to spend. 

And we hae pints to bring. 

We'll live a* our days. 

And them that come behin*. 
Let them do the like. 

And spend the gear they win. 
Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro'. 

For we hae mickle ado ; 
Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro*. 
For we hae mickle ado. 



COCK Up your BEAVEn-. 



269 



WEARY FA' YOU, DUNCAN 
GRAY. 

Tvnn—' Duncan Cray.' 

Weary fa' you, Duncan Gray — 

Ha, ha, the girdin o't ! 
Wae gae by you, Duncan Gray — 

Ha, ha, the girdin o't ! 
When a' the lave gae to their play, 
Then I maun sit the lee-lang day, 
And jog the cradle vvi' my tae, 

And a' for the girdin o't. 

Bonie was the Larftmas moon-^ 

Ha, ha, the girdin o't ! 
Glowrin' a' the hills aboon — 

Ha. ha, the girdin o't ! 
The girdin brak, the beast cam down, 
I tint my curch, and baith my shoon ; 
Ah ! Duncan, ye're an unco loon — 

Wae on the bad girdin o't ! 

But, Duncan, gin ye'Il keep your aith — 

Ha, ha, the girdin o't ! 
Ise bless you vvi' my hindmost breath— 

Ha, ha, the girdin o't ! 
Duncan, gin ye'll keep your aith, 
The beast again can bear us baith, 
And auld Mess John will mend the 
skaith. 

And clout the bad girdin o't. 



MY HOGGIE.- 

Tune—' IVhat iviil I do gin wy Hoggie dieV 

What will I do gin niy Hoggie die ? 

My joy, my pride, my Hoggie ! 
My only beast, I had na mae, 

And vow but I was vogie ! 

The lee-lang night we watch'd the 
fauld. 

Me and my failhfu' doggie j 
We heard nought but the roaring linn, 

Amang the braes sae scroggic ; 

But tlie.howlet cry'd frae the castle wa^ 

The blitler frae the hoggie. 
'J'he tod rcply'd upon the hill, 

I trembled for my Hoggie 



When day did daw, and cocks did craw, 
The morning it was foggie ; 

An' unco tyke lap o'er the dyke. 
And maist has kill'd my Hoggie. 

WHERE HAE YE BEEN. 
Tune—' Killiecrankie* 

Whare hae ye been sae braw, lad ? 

Where hae ye been sae brankie, O ? 
O, whare hae ye been sae braw, lad ? 

Cam ye by Killiecrankie, O ; 
An' ye had been whare I hae been. 

Ye wad na been so cantie, O ; 
An' ye had seeri what I had seen. 

On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O. 

I fought at land, I fought at sea ; 

At hame I fought my auntie, O ; 
But I met the Devil an'. Dundee, 

On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O. 
The bauld Pitcur fell in a furr, 

An' Clavers got a clankie, O ; 
Or 1 had fed an Athble gled, 

On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O. 

COCK UP YOUR BEAVER. 

Tune—* Cock -iip yojtr leaver.' 

When first iny brave Johnnie lad 

Came to this town, 
He had a blue bonnet 

That wanted the crown ; 
But now he has gotten 

A hat and a feather, — 
Hey, brave Johnnie lad, 

Cock up your beaver ! 

Cock up your beaver, 

And cock it fu' sprush, 
We'll over the border 

And gie them a brush ; 
There's somebody there 

We'll teach better behaviour— 
Hey, brave Johnnie lad, 

Cock up your beaver ! 

THE HERON BALLADS, 

FIRST BALl.AJX 

Whom will you send to London li)wn, 
To Parliament and a' that ? 

Or wha in a' the country round 
The best deserves to fa' that ? 



27d 



THE ELECTIOM, 



For a' that, an' a' that, 
Thro' Galloway and a' thaj; ! 
\Vhere is the laird or Ijelted 

knight 
That best deserves to fa' that ? 

Wha sees Kerroughtree's open yett, 

And wha is't never saw that? 
Wha ever wi' Kerroughtree meets 
x\nd has a doubt of a' that? 
For a' that, an' a' that, 
Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
The independent patriot, 
The honest man, an' a' that. 

Tho' wit and worth 'in either sex, 
St. Mary's Isle can shaw that ; 
Wi' dukes an' lords let Selkirk mix, 
And weel does Selkirk fa' that. 
For a' that, an' a' that. 
Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
The independent commoner 
Shall be the man for a' that. 

But why should we to nobles jouk. 

And is't against the law that ? 
For why, a lord may be a gouk, 
Wi' ribbon, star, an' a' that. 
For a' that, an' a' that, 
Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
A lord may be a lousy loun, 
Wi' ribbon, star, an' a' that. 

A beardless boy comes o'er the hills, 

Wi' uncle's purse an' a' that ; 
But we'll hae ane frae 'mang oursels, 
A man we ken, an' a' that. 
For a' that, an' a' that, 
Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
For we're not to be bought an' 

sold 
Like naigs, an' nowt, an' a' that. 

Then let us drink the Stewartry, 

Kerroughtree's laird, an' a' that, 
Our representative to be, 
For vveel he's worthy a' that. 
For a' that, an' a' that. 
Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
A House of Commons such as 

he. 
They would be blest that saw 
that. 



THE ELECTION. 

SECOND BALLAD. 

Fy, let vis a' to Kirkcudbright, 

For there will be bickerin' there ; 
For Murray's light-horse are to inuster, 

And O. how the heroes will swear ! 
An' there will be Murray commander. 

And Gordon the battle to win ; 
Like brothers they'll stand by each 
other, 

Sae knit in alliance an' kin. 

An' there will be black -lippit Johnnie, 

The tongue o' the trump to them a' ; 
An' he get na hell for his haddin' 

The Deil gets na justice ava' ; 
An' there will be Kempleton's birkie, 

A boy no sae black at the bane. 
But, as for his fine nabob fortune. 

We'll e'en let the subject alane. 

An' there will be Wigton's new sheriff. 

Dame Justice fu' brawlie has sped, 
She's gotten the heart of a Bushby, 

But, Lord, what 's become o' the head ? 
An' there will be Cardoness, Esquire, 

Sae mighty in Cardoness' eyes ; 
A wight that will weather damnation. 

For the Devil the prey will despise. 

An' there will be Douglasses doughty. 

New christ'ning towns far and near ! 
Abjuring their democrat doings, 

By kissing the — o' a peer ; 
An' there will be Kenmure sae gen'rous 

Whose honour is proof to the storm. 
To save them from stark reprobation 

He lent them his name to the firm. 

But we winna mention Redcastle, 

The body e'en let him escape ! 
He'd venture the gallows for siller. 

An' 'twere na the cost o' the rape. 
An' where is our King's lord lieutenant, 

Sae fam'd for his gratefu' return ? 
The billie is gettin' his questions. 

To say in St. Stephen's the morn. 

An' there will be lads o' the gospel, 
Muirhead wha's as good as he s true; 

An' there will be Buittle's apostle, 
Wha's more o^the black than the blue ; 



AN EXCELLENT NEW SOiVC. 



^7t 



An* there will be folk from St. Mary*s, 
A house o* great merit and note, 

The deil ane but honours them highly, — 
The deil ane will gie them his vote ! 

An' there will be wealthy young Richard, 

Dame Fortune should hing by the 
neck; 
For prodigal, thriftless bestowing — 

His merit had won him respect : 
An' there will be rich brother nabobs, 

Though nabobs, yet men of the first ; 
An' there will be Collieston's whiskers, 

An' Quintin, o' lads not the worst. 

An' there will be stamp-office Johnnie, 

Tak tent how ye purchase a dram ; 
An' there will be gay Cassencarrie, 

An' there will be gleg Colonel Tam ; 
An' there will be trusty Kerroughtree, 

Whose honour was ever his law. 
If the virtues were pack'd in a parcel) 

His worth might be sample for a'. 

An* can we forget the auld major, 

Wha'U ne'er be forgot in the Greys ; 
Our flatt'ry we'll keep for some other, 

Him only 'tis justice to praise. 
An' there will be maiden Kilkerran, 

And also Barskimming's gude knight ; 
An* there will be roarin' Birtwhistle, 

Wha, luckily, roars in the right. 

An' there, fraethe Niddisdale's borders, 

Will mingle the Maxwells in droves ; 
Teugh Johnnie, staunch Geordie, an' 
Walie, 

That griens for the fishes an' loaves ; 
An' there will be Logan MacDowall, 

Sculdudd'ry an' he will be there, 
An* also the wild Scot o' Galloway, 

Sodgerin', gunpowder Blair. 

Then hey the chaste interest o* 
Broughton, 

An' hey for the blessings 'twill bring ! 
It may send Balmaghie to the Commons, 

In Sodom 'twould make him a King ; 
An' hey for the sanctified Murray, 

Our land who wi' chapels has stor'd ; 
He founder'd his horse among harlots, 

But gied the auld naig to the Lord. 



AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG. 

THIRD BALLAD. (MA.V 1796.) 

Wha will buy my troggin; 

Fine election ware ; 
Broken trade o' Broughton, 
A' in high repair. 
Buy braw troggin, 

Frae the banks o* De0 ' 
Wha wants troggin 
Let him come to me 

There's a noble Earl's 

Fame and high renown. 
For an auld sang — 

It's thought the gudes were stown.- 
Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here's the worth o' Broughton 

In a needle's ee ; 
Here's a reputation 

Tint by Balmaghie. 

Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here's an honest conscience 

Might a prince adorn ; 
Frae the downs o' Tinwald — 

So was never -worn. 

Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here's its stuff and lining, 

Cardoness' head ; 
Fine for a sodger 

A' the wale o' lead. 

Buy braw troggin, &C. 

Here's a little wadset 

Buittles scrap o' truth, 
Pawn'd in a gin-shop 

Quenching holy drouth. 
Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here's armorial bearings 

Frae the manse o' Urr ; 
The crest, an auld crab-apple 

Rotten at the core. 

Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here is Satan's picture, 

Like a biz^ard gled. 
Pouncing poor Redcastle 

Sprawlin' as a taed. 

Buy braw troggin, &c 



27^ 



^OHN BUSHBY'S LAMENTATION. 



Here's the worth and wisdom 
Collieston can boast ; 

By a thievish midge 
They had been nearly lost. 
Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here is Murray's fragments 
O' the ten commands ; 

Gifted by black Jock 

To get them aff his hands. 
Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Saw ye e'er sic troggin ? 

If to buy ye're slack, 
Hornie's turnin' chapman, — 

He'll buy a' the pack. 

Buy braw troggin^ &c. 



JOHN BUSHBY'S 
LAMENTATION. 

Tune—* The Bales ift the Wood. 

'TWAS in the seventeen hunder year 

O' grace and ninety-five. 
That year I was the wae'est man 

O' ony man alive. 

In March the three-and-twentieth mom, 
The sun raise clear and bright ; 

But oh I was a waefu' man 
Er'e.to-fa' o' the night. 

Verl Galloway lang diu rule this land, 

Wi' equal right and fame, 
And thereto was -his kinsman join'd 

The Murray's noble name. 

Yerl Galloway lang did rule the land, 
Made me the judge o' strife ; 

But now Yerl Galloway's sceptre's broke, 
And eke my hangman's knife. 

'Twas by the banks o' bonie Cree, 
Beside Kirkcudbright's towers, 

The Stewart and the Murray there 
Did musicr a' their powers. 

The Murray, on the auld gray yaud, 

Wi* winged spurs did ride. 
That auld gray yaud, yea, Nidsdale rade, 

He staw upon Nidside. 



An' there had na been the yerl himsel', 
O there had been nae play ; 

But Garlics was to London gane, 
And sae the kye might stray. 

•And there was Balmaghie, I ween, 
In front rank he wad shine; 

But Balmaghie had better been 
Drinking Madeira wine. 

Frae the Glenkens came to our aid, 

A chief o' doughty deed ; 
In case that worth should wanted be, 

O' Kenmure we had need. 

And by our banners march'd Muirhead, 

And Buittle was na slack ; 
AVhase haly priesthood nane can stain. 

For wha can dye the black ? 

And there sae grave Squire Cardoness, 
Look'd on till a' was done ; 

Sae, in the tower o' Cardoness, 
A howlet sits at noon. 

And there "led I the Bushby clan. 

My gamesome billie Will ; 
And my son Maitland, wise as brave. 

My footsteps follow'd still. 

The Douglas and the Heron's name 
We set nought to their score ; 

The Douglas and the Heron's name 
Had felt our weight before., 

But Douglasses o' weight had we, 

The pair o' lusty lairds, 
For building cot-houses sae famed, 

And christening kail-yards. 

And there Redcastle drew his sword, 
That ne'er was stained wi' gore, 

Save on a wanderer lame and blind. 
To drive him frae his door. 

And last cUme creeping Collieston, 
Was mair in fear than wrath ; 

Ae knave was constant in his mind. 
To keep that knave frae scaith. 



V£ J A COBITES B Y NAM&. 2 7 j 



YE SONS OF OLD KILLIE. 

Tune— 'Sha-ivnboy. ' 

Ye sons of old Killie, assembled by Willie, 

To follow the noble vocation ; 
Your thrifty old mother has scarce such another 

To sit in that honour'd station.. 
I've little to say, but only to pray. 

As praying's the ton of your fashion ; 
A prayer froi^ the Muse yon well may excuse, 

'Tis seldom her favourite passion. 

Ye powers who preside o'er the wiiid and the tide, 

. Who marked each element's border ; 
Who formed this frame with beneficent aim. 

Whose sovereign statute is order ; 
Within this dear mansion may wayward contention 

Or withered envy ne'er. enter; 
iMay secrecy round be the mystical bound. 

And brotherly love be the centre ! 

YE JACOBITES BY NAME. 

Tune—* Ve yacobiles by name* 

Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear, give an ear j 
'Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear ; 
Ye Jacobites by name, 
Your fautes I will proclaim, 
Your doctrines I maun blame — 
You shall hear. 

What is right and what is wrang, by the law, by the law ? 
What is right and what is wrang by the law ? 
What is right and what is wrang ? 
A short sword and a lang, 
A weak arm, and a Strang 
For to draw. 

What makes heroic strife, fam'd afar, fam'd afar, 
What make^ heroic strife fam'd afar ? 
What makes heroic strife ? 
To whet th' assassin's knife, 
Or hunt a parent's life 
Wi,' bluidie war. 

Then let your schemes alone, in the state, in the state ; 
Then let your schemes alone in the state ; 
Then'let your schemes alone, 
Adore the rising sun. 
And leave a man undone 
To his fate. 

T 



274 



THE COLLIER LADDIE, 



SONG—AH, CHLORIS. 

Tune — 'Major Graham* 

Ah, Chloris, since it may ha be, 
That thou of love wilt hear ; 

If from the lover thou maun flee, 
Yet let the friend be dear. 

Altho' I love my Chloris mair 
Than ever tongue could tell ; 

Lly passion I will ne'er declare, 
I'll say, I wish thee well : 

Tho' a' my daily care thou art, 
And a' my nightly dream, 

I'll hide the struggle in my heart, 
And say it is esteem. 



WHAN I SLEEP I DREAM. 

Whan I sleep I dream, 

Whan I wauk I'm eerie. 
Sleep I canna get, 

For thinkin' o' my dearie. 

Lanely night comes on, 

A' the house are sleeping, 
I think on the bonie lad 

That has my heart a keeping. 

Ay waukin O, waukin ay and 

wearie, 
Sleep I canna get, for thinkjn' o' 
my dearie. 

Lanely night comes on, 

A' the house are sleeping, 
I think on my bonie lad, 

An' I bleer my een wi' greetin' ! 
Ay waukin, &c. 



KATHARINE JAFFRAY, 

There liv'd a lass in yonder dale, 
And down in yonder glen, O ; 

And Katharine Jaffray was her name, 
Weel known to many men, O. 

Out came the Lord of Lauderdale 
Out frae the south countrie, O, 

All for to court this pretty maid, 
Her bridegroom for to be, O. 



He's tell'd her father and mother baith. 

As I hear sindry say, O ; 
But he has na tell'd the lass hersel' 

Till on her wedding day, O. 

Then came tlie Laird o' Lochinton 
Out frae the English border. 

All for to court this pretty maid. 
All mounted in good order. 

THE COLLIER LADDIE. 

O whare live ye my bonie lass. 
And 4ell me how they ca' ye ? 

My name, she says, is Rlistress Jean, 
And I follow my Collier laddie. 

see ye not yon hills and dales 
The sun shines on sae brawly : 

They a' are mine, and they shall be thine, 
If ye'll leave your Collier laddie. 

And ye shall gang in rich attire, 

Weel buskit up fu' gaudy , 
And ane to wait at every hand, 

If ye'll leave your Collier laddie. 

Tho' ye had a' the sun shines on, 
And the earth conceals sae lowly j 

1 would turn my back on you and it a , 
And' embrace my Collier laddie. 

I can win rriy five pennies in a day. 
And spend it at night full brawlie ; 

I can mak my bed in the Collier's neuk. 
And lie down wi' my Collier laddie. 

Loove for loove is the bargain for me, 
Tho' the wee cot-house should baud 
me ; [bread, 

And the warld before me to win my 
And fare fa' my Collier laddie. 

WHEN I THINK ON THE 
HAPPY DAYS, 

When I think on the happy days 
I spent wi' you, my dearie ; 

And now what lands between us lie, 
How can I be but eerie ! 

How slow ye m.ove, ye heavy hours, 
As ye were wae and weary ! 

It was na sae ye glinted by 
When I was wi' my dearie. 



PVJ/^ rS MY HEART. 



m 



YOUNG JAMIE, PRIDE OF A» 
THE PLAIN. 

Tune — ' The Carltn o' the Glen!' 

Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain, 
Sae gallant and sae gay a swain ; 
Tho' a' our lasses he did rove, 
And reign'd resistless King of Love : 
But now wi' sighs and starting tears, 
He strays amang the woods and briers; 



Or in the glens and roclcy caves 
His sad complaining dowie raves : 

I wha sae late did range and rove, 
And changed with every moon my love, 
I little thought the time. was near. 
Repentance I should buy sae dear ; 
The slighted maids my torment see. 
And laugh at a' th^ pangs I dree ; 
While she, rhy cruel, scornfu' fair, 
Forbids me e'er ^p see her mair 1 



THE- HEATHER WAS BLOOMING. 

The heather was blooming, the meadows were riiawn,' 
Our lads gaed a hunting, ae day at the dawn, 
O'er moors and o'er mosses and monie a glen. 
At length they discover'd a bonie moor-hen. 

I red you beware at the hunting, young men ; 

I red you beware at the hunting, young men ; 

Tak some on the wing, and some as they spring. 

But camiily steal on a bonie moor-hen. 

Sweet brushing the dew from the brown heather bells, 
Her colours betray'd her on yon mossy fells ; 
Her plumage outlustred the pride o' the spring. 
And O ! as she wanton'd gay on the wing. 
I red, &c. 

Auld Phoebus himsel, as he peep'd o'er the hill, 
In spite at her plumage he tried his skill : 
He levell'd his rays where she bask'd on the brae — i 
His rayis were outshone, and but mark'd where, she lay. 
I red^ &c. 

They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill. 
The best of our lads wi' the best o' their skill ; 
But still as the fairest she sat in their sight, 
Then, Avhirr I she was over, a mile at a, flight. 

I red, &c 

« « * 

WAE IS MY HEART. 

Wae is my heart, and the tear's in my ee ; 
Lang, lang, joy's been a stranger to me : 
Forsaken and friendless my burden I bear, 
And the sweet voice o' pity ne'er sounds in my ear. 

Love, thou hast pleasures ; and deep hae I loved ; 
Love, thou hast sorrows ; and sair hae I proved : 
But this bruised.heart that now bleeds in my breast, 
I can feel its throbbings will soon be at rest. 

O if I were where happy I hae been ; 
Down by yon stream and yon bonie castle green :• 
For there he is wand'ring and musing on me, 
Wha wad soon dry the tear frae Phillis's ee. 



ty6 



GUDEEN TO YOU, KIMMER, 



EPPIE M'NAB. 

O SAW ye my dearie, my Eppie M 'Nab ? 
O saw ye my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab? 
She's down in the yard, she's kissin* the laird, 
She winna come hame to her ain Jock Rab. 
O come thy ways to me, my Eppie M'Nab ! 
O come thy ways to me, my Eppie M'Nab ! 
Whate'er thou has done, be it late, be it soon, 
Thou's welcome again to thy ain Jock Rab. 

What says she, my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab? 
What says she, my dearie, my Eppie M 'Nab ? 
She lets thee to wit, that she has thee forgot. 
And for ever disowns thee, her ain Jock Rab. 
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Eppie M'Nab ! 
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Eppie M'Nab! 
As light as the air, and fause as thou 's fair. 
Thou 's broken the heart o' thy ain Jock Rab» 



AN, O ! MY EPPIE. 

An' O ! my Eppie, 
My jewel, my Eppie ! 
Wha wadna be happy 

Wi' Eppie Adair ? 
By love, and by beauty, 
By law, and by duty, 
I swear to be true to 

My Eppie Adair ! 

An' O ! my Eppie, 
My jewel, my Eppie ! 
Wha wadna be happy 

Wi' Eppie Adair ? 
A' pleasure exile me, 
Dishonour defile me, 
If e'er I beguile ttiee, 

My Eppie Adair ! 



GUDEEN TO YOU, KIMMER. 

GuDEEN to you, Kimmer, 

And how do ye do ? 
Hiccup, quo' Kimmer, 
The better that I'm fou. 

We're a' noddin, nid nid noddin, 
We're a' noddin at our house at 
hame. 



Kate sits i' the neuk» 
Suppin' hen broo ; 

Deil tak Kate 

An' she be a noddin too • 
We're a' noddin, &c. 

How's a' wi' you, Kimmer, 
And how do ye fare ? 

A pint o* the best o't. 
And twa pints mair. 
We're a' noddin, &c. 

How's a' wi' you, Kimmer, 
And how do ye thrive ; 

How mony bairns hae ye ? 
Quo' Kimmer, I hae five. 
We're a' noddin, &c. 

Are they a' Johny's ? 

Eh ! atweel no : 
Twa o' them were gotten 

When Johny was awa. 
We're a' noddin, &c. 

Cats like milk, 

And dogs like broo ; 
Lads like lasses weel, 

And lasses lads too. 
We're a* noddin, &c. 



THE LADDIES BY THE BANKS 0' NITH. 



277 



O THAT I HAD NE'ER BEEN 
MARRIED. 

O THAT I had ne'er been married, 

I wad never had nae care ; 
Now I've gotten wife and bairns, 
An' they cry crowdie ever mair. 
Ance crowdie, twice crowdie, 

Three times crowdie in a day ; 
Gin ye crowdie ony mair, 
Ye'U crowdie a' my meal away. 

Waefu want and hunger fley me, 
Glowrin by the hallen en' ; 

Sair I fecht them at the door, 
But ay I'm eerie they come bsn. 
Ance crowdie, &c. 

THERE'S NEWS, LASSES. 

There's news, lasses, news, 

Gude news I've to tell. 
There's a boat fu' o' lads 
Come to our town to sell. 
Tlje wean wants a cradle, 

An' the cradle wants a cod, 
An' I'll no gang to my bed 
Until I get a nod. 

Father, quo' she, Mither, quo' she, 

Do what ye can, 
I'll no gang to my bed 

Till I get a man. 
The wean, &c. 

I hae as gude a craft rig 

As made o' yird and stane; 
And waly fu* the ley-crap 

For I maun till'd again. 
The wean, &c. 

SCROGGAM. 

There was a wife wonn'd in Cockpen, 

Scroggam ; 
She brew'd gude ale for gentlemen, 
Sing auld Cowl, lay you down by me, 
Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum. 

The gudewife's dochter fell in a fever, 

Scroggam ; 
The priest o' the parish fell in anither, 
Sing auld Cowl, lay you down by me, 
Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum. 



They laid the twa i' the bed thegither, 

Scroggam; 
That the heat o' the tane might cool 

the tither. 
Sing auld Cowl, lay you down by me, 
Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum.. 

FRAE THE FRIENDS AND 
LAND I LOVE. 

Frae the friends and land I love, 

Driven by Fortune's felly spite, 
Frae my best belov'd I rove. 

Never mair to taste delight ; 
Never mair maun hope to find 

Ease frae toil, relief frae care : 
When remembrance wrecks the mind, 

Pleasures but unveil despair. 

Brightest climes shall mirk appear, 

Desart ilka blooming shore, 
Till the Fates, nae mair severe. 

Friendship, love, and peace restore ; 
Till revenge, wi' laurell'd head. 

Bring our banish'd hame again ; 
And ilka loyal, bonie lad 

Cross the seas and win his ain. 

THE LADDIES BY THE BANKS 
O' NITH. 

ELECTION BALLAD, I789. 

Tune — ' Up andwaur thejit «'.' 
The- laddies by the banks o' Nith 

Wad trust his Grace wi' a', Jamte, 
But he'll sair them as he sair'd the king- 
Turn tail and rin awa, Jamie. 

Up and waur them a', Jamie, 

Up and waur them a* ; 
The Johnstons hae theguidin' o't, 
Ye turncoat Whigs, awa. 

The day he stude his country's friend, 
Or gied her faes a claw, Jamie, 

Or frae puir man a blessin' wan. 
That day th6 duke ne'er saw, Jamie. 

But wha is he, his country's boast ? 

Like him there is na twa, Jamie ; 
There's ho a callant tents tlie kye, 

But kens o' Westerha', Jamie. 

To end the wark, here's Whistlebirk, 
Lang may his whistle blaw, Jamie ; 

And Maxv\tll true o' sterling blue. 
And we'll be Johnstons a', Jamie. 



278 



SONG. 



THE BONIE LASS OF 
ALBANY. 

Tune — ' Mary's dream.* 

My heart is wae, and unco wae, 
To think upon the I'aging sea, 

That roars between her gardens green 
And the bonie Lass of Albany. 

This lovely maid's of royal blood 
That ruled Albion's kingdoms three, 

But oh, alas, for her bonie face, 

They hae.wrang'd the Lass of Albany. 

In the rolling tide of spreading Clyde 
There sits an isle of high degree. 

And a town of fame whose princely 
name 
Should grace the Lass of Albany. 

But there's a youth, a witless youth. 
That fills the place where she should 
be ; 

We'll send him o^er to his native shore, 
And bring our ain sweet Albany. 

Alas the day, ^nd \vo the day, 
A false usurper wan the gree, 

Who how commands the towers and 
lands — 
The royal right of Albany. 

We'll daily pray, we'll nightly pray, 
On bended knees most ferventlie. 

The time may come, with pipe and 
drum 
We'll welcome hame fair Albany. 



SONG, 

Tune-*-* Maggy Lauder* 

When first I saw fair Jeanie's face» 

I couldna tell what ailed me. 
My heart went fluttering pit-a-pat. 

My een they almost failed me. 
She's aye sae neat, sae trim, sae tight, 

All grace does round her hover, 
Ae look deprived me o' my heart, 

A nd I became a lover. 
She's aye, aye sae blythe, sae gay. 

She's aye so blythe and cheerie ; 
She's aye sae bonie, blythe, and gay, 

O gin I were her dearie ! 

Had I Dundas's whole estate, 

Or Hopetoun's wealth to shine in ; 
Did warlike laurels crown my brow, 

Or humbler bays entwining — 
I'd lay tliem a' at Jeanie's feet, . 

Could I but hope to move her. 
And prouder than a belted knight, 

I'd be my Jeanie's lover. 

She's aye, aye sae blythe, sae 
gay, &c. 

But sair I fear some happier swain 

Has gained sweet Jeanie's favour ; 
If so, may every bliss be hers, 

Though I maun never have her : 
But gang she .east, or gang she west, 

'Twixt Forth and Tweed all over. 
While men have eyes, or ears, or taste, 

She'll always find a lover. 
She's aye, aye sae blythe, sae 
gay, &c. 



APPENDIX. 

The following Elegy, Extempore Verses to Gavin Haviilton, and Versicles on Sign- 
posts, now fof the first time published, are extracted, it is supposed, from the copy 
of his Common-place Book which Burns presented to Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop. 
The copy, after having been in the hands of several persons, and at each remove 
denuded of certain pages, came into the possession of Mr. Stillie, bookseller, 
Princes Street, Edinburgh, some years since, and is now the property of Mr. 
Macmillan. Besides the following poems, it contains two stanzas never before 
published of the Epitaph on Robert Fergtisson, versions of There was a Lad was born 
in Kyle, and Gordon Castle, differing in some respects from those commonly 
printed ; all of which have been embodied in the notes to the present edition. In 
the Common-place book, the Elegy is thus introduced: — "The following poem is 
the work of some hapless unknown son of the Muses, who deserved a better fate. 
There is a great deal of 'The Voice of Cona,' in his solitary mournful notes ; and 
had the sentiments been clothed in Shenstone's language, they would have been no 
discredit even to that elegant poet." Burns, it will be seen, does not claim the 
authorship, and, from internal evidence, the Editor is of opinion that it was not 
written by him. Still, the Elegy, so far at least as the Editor is aware, exists no- 
where else ; and if Burns did not actually compose it, he at least thought it worthy 
of being copied with his own hand into a book devoted almost exclusively to his 
own compositions. Even if it were certain that Burns was not the author, still, 
the knowledge that he admired it, and that through his agency it alone exists, is 
considered sufficient excuse for its admission here. The Extetnpore Verses to Gavin 
Hamilton are as certainly Bums's as is Death and Dr. Hornbook, or the Address to 
the -Deil. The dialect, the turn of phrase, the glittering surface of sarcasm, with 
the-strong under-current of sense, and the peculiar off-hand impetuosity of idea and 
illustration, unmistakeably indicate Bums's hand, and his only. In the Comvjon- 
place Book, no date is given; but from the terms of the two closing stanzas, it 
would appear that the voyage to Jamaica was in contemplation at the period of its 
composition. The last stanza is almost identical in thought and expression with 
the closing lines of the well-known Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, which was 
written at that time, and which appeared in the first edition of the Poems printed 
at Kilmarnock. 

The Versicles on Signposts have the following introduction: — "The everlasting 
surliness of a Lion, Saracen's head, &ci. or the unchanging blandness of the Land- 
lord welcoming a traveller, on some sign-posts, would be no bad similes of the 
constant affected fierceness of a Bully, or the eternal simper of a frenchman or a 
Fiddler." The Versicles themselves are of little worth, and are indebted entirely 
to their paternity for their appearance here. 



iZo 



APPENDIX. 



ELEGY. 

Strait is the spot and green the sod, 
From whence my sorrows flow : 

And soundly sleeps the ever dear 
Inhabitant below. 

Pardon my transport, gentle sh\de, 
While o'er the turf I bow ! 

Thy earthly house is circumscrib'd, 
And solitary now. 

Not one poor stone to tell thy name, 
Or make thy virtues known : 

But what avails to me, to thee, 
The sculpture of a stone ? 

I'll sit me down upon this turf, 
And wipe away this tear : ! 

The chill blast passes swiftly by, 
And flits around thy bier. 

Dark is the dwelling of the Dead, 
And sad their house of rest : 

Low lies the head by Death's cold arm 
In aweful fold embrac'd. 

I saw the grim Avenger stand 

Incessant by thy side ; 
Unseen by thee, his deadly breath 

-Thy lingering frame destroy'd. 

Pale grew the roses on thy cheek, 
And wither'd was thy bloom. 

Till the slow poison brought thy youth 
Untimely to the tomb. 

Thus wasted are the ranks of men, 
Youth, Health, and Beauty fall : 

The ruthless ruin spreads around, 
And overwhelms us all. 

Behold where round thy narrow house 
The graves unnumber'd lie 1 

The multitudes that sleep below 
Existed but to die. 

Some, with the tottering steps of Age, 
Trod down the darksome way : 

And some, in youth's lamented prime, 
Like thee, were torn away. 

Yet these, however hard their fate, 
Their native earth receives : 

Amid their weeping friends they died, 
And fill their fathers' graves. 



From thy lovM friends when first thy 
heart 

Was taught by Heaven to flow : 
Far, far remov'd, the ruthless stroke 

Surpris'd and laid thee low. 

At the last limits of our isle, 
Wash'd by the western wave, 

Touch'd by thy fate, a thoughtful bard 
Sits lonely on thy grave. 

Pensive he eyes, before him spread. 
The deep, outstretch'd and vast ; 

His mourning notes are borne away 
Along the rapid blast. 

And while, amid the silent Dead 
Thy hapless fate he mourns, 

His own long sorrows freshly bleed, 
And all his grief returns. 

Like thee, cut off in early youth 
And flower of beauty's pride, 

His friend, his first and only joy, 
His much loved Stella, died. 

Him, too, the stem impulse of Fate 

Resistless bears along ; 
And the same rapid tide shall whelm 

The Poet and the Song. 

The tear of pity which he shed, 

He asks not to receive ; 
Let but his poor remains be laid 

Obscurely in the grave. 

His grief-worn heart, with truest joy, 
Shall meet the welcome shock : 

His airy harp shall lie unstrung 
And silent on the rock. 

O, my dear maid, my Stella, when 
Shall this sick period close : 

And lead the solitary bard 
To his beloved repose ? 

EXTEMPORE 

TO MR. GAVIN HAMILTON. 

To you, Sir, this summons I've sent,- 
Pray whip till the pownie is fraething ; 

But if you demand what I want, 
I honestly answer you, naethio^ 



APPENDIX. 



2St 



Ne'er scorn a poor Poet like me, 
For idly just, living and breathing,. 

While people of every degree 
Are busy employed about — naething. 

Poor Ceritum-per-centum may fast, 
And grumble his hurdles their claith- 

He'll find, when the balance is cast, 
He's gane to the devil for— naething. 

The courtier cringes arid bows, 

Ambition has likewise its plaything ; 

A coronet beams on his brows : 
And what is a coronet ?— naething. 

Some quarrel the Presbyter gown, 
Some quarrel Episcopal graithing, 

l^ut every good fellow will own 
Their quarrel. is all about — naething. 

The lover may sparkle and glow, 

Approaching his bonie bit gay thing : 

But marriage will soon let him know 
He's gotten a buskit up naething. 

The Poet may jingle and rhyme 
In hopes of a laureate wreathing, 

And when he lias wasted his time 
He's kindly rewarded with naething. 

The thundering bully may rage, 

And swagger and swear like a 
heathen ; 

But collar him fast, I'll engage. 

You'll find that his. courage i^naething. 

Last night with a feminine whig, 
A Poet she could na put faith in. 

But soon we grew lovingly big, 

I taught her, her terrors were naething. 

Her whigship was wonderful pleased,- 
But charmingly tickled wi' ae thing ; 



Her fingers I lovingly squeezed. 
And kissed her and promised her— 
naething. 

The priest anathemas may threat, — 
Predicament, Sir, that we're baith in ; 

But when honour's reveille is beat, 
The holy artillery's naething. 

And now, I must mount on the wave, 
My voyage perhaps there is death in : 

But what of a w^atery grave ? 
The drowning a Poet is naething. 

And now, as grim death's in my thought, 
To you. Sir, I make this bequeathing : 

My service as long as ye've aught, 
And my friendship, by G — , when 
ye've naething. 

VERSICLES ON SIGN-POSTS, 

He looked 
Just as your Sign-post lions do, 
As fierce, and quite as harmless too. 

PATIENT STUPIDITY. 

So heavy, passive to the.tempests' shocks, 
Strong on the Sign-post stands the stupid 
Ox. 



His face with smile eternal drest, 
Just like the Landlord to his guest, 
High as they hang with creaking din, 
To index out the Country Inn, 

A head, pure, sinless quite of brain and 

soul. 
The very image of a Barber's Poll ; 
It shows a human face and wears a wig. 
And looks, when well preserved, amazing 

big. 



283 



NOTES. 



Page I. The tale of the ' Twa Dogs, Gilbert 
Burns writes, was composed after the resolution 
of publishing was nearly taken. Robert had a 
dog which he called l^uath, that was a great 
favourite. The dog had been kifled by the 
wanton cruelty of some person the night before 
my father's death. Robert said to me, that he 
should like to confer such immortality as he 
could bestow bn his old friend Lualh, and 
that he had a great mind to introduce something 
into the book, under the title of Stanzas to the 
Memory of a Quadruped Friend; but this plan 
was given up for the poeni as it now stands. 
Caesar was merely the creature of the poet's 
imagination, created for the purpose of holding 
chat with his favourite Luath. 

Page I, / 26. Luath, Cuchullin's dog in 
Ossian's Fingal. R. B. 

PageiflZ. Var. In all editions up to 1794 — 
Till tired at last \vi' many a farce, 
They sat tlieiu down upon their a—. 

Page 3, / 14. Burns alludes to the factor in 
the autobiographical sketch communicated to 
Dr. John Moore. 

' My father's generous master died : the farm 
proved a ruinous bargain : and, to clench the 
misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor 
who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in 
my tale of the "Twa Dogs'' . . . my indigna- 
tion yet boils at the recollection of the scoundrel 
fac:or's insolent threatening letters, which used 
i.<3 set us all in tears.' 

Page 8, / 10. In the first edition the stanza 
dosed as follows : — 

Wae worth them for'tl 
Whilo healths gae round to him, wha tight, 
Gica famous sport. 

Page 9, / 2. V'ar. "Humble thanks" in 
edition of 1794. 

Page 9, / 25. This was wrote before the Act 
anent the Scotch Distilleries, -of Session, 1786 : 
for which Scotland and the author return their 
most grateful thanks. R. B. 

Page g, I T,^^. Var. ' Simple Poet's prayers ' 
in edition of 1794. 

Page II, / I. The allusion in the text is pri- 
marily to Hugh Montgonurie of Coilsfield, 
twelfth Earl of Eglintoune. 

Page II, / 2. J rones Boswell of Auchinleck, 
Johnson's biographer. 

Page II, I 17. George Dempster, Esq. of 
Dunnichen. 

Page li, / 18. Sir Adam Fergusspn of Kil- 
kerran, Bart. 

Page II, / 20. The Marquis of Graham, 
eldest son of the Duke of Montrose. 

^nge II, /32, The Ri(?ht Hon. Henry Dun- 



das, Treasurer of the Navy, and M.P. for the 
city of Edinburgh. 

Page II, I 24. Lord Frederick Caftipbell, 
secona brother of the Duke of Argyle, and Hay 
Campbell, Lord Advocate of Scotland. 

Page 12, 1 13. The Earl of Chatham, Pitt's 
father, was the second son of Robert Pitt of 
Boconnock, in the county of Cornwall. 

Page 12, / 15. A worthy old hostess of the 
author's in Mauchline, where he .sometimes 
studies politics over a glass of gwid old Scotch 
drink. R. B. Nanse was surprised at her house 
and name being thus dragged before the public. 
She declared that Burns had never taken three 
half-mutchkms in her house in all his life. 

Page 13, / 37. In edition of 1794 this stanz.^ 
is altered as follows :— 

"Scotlard, my auld respected mither! 
Tho' whiles ye moistiJ'y your leather. 
Till when ye speak, ye a'iblins blether ; 

Yet deil m:ik matter.' 
Freedom and Whisky gang thegither, 

Tak aft your whither. 

This tasteless alteration (which we feel con- 
vinced was not made by the poet) was not 
adopted in any subsequent edition of the Poems. 

Page 14, / I. Holy Fair is a common phrase 
in the west of Scotland for a sacramental occa- 
sion. R. B. 

Page 15, / 39. Var. 

Bet B — r there, an' twa-three whores. 

Racer Jess was a half-witted daughter of 
Poosie Nansie. She was a great pedestrian, 
and died at Mauchline in 1813. 

Page 15, / 43. Var. An' there, -a batch o' 
wabsier brawds. 

Page 16, / 2. Var. An' ithers on their claes. 

Page 16, /22. Var. 

■\Vi' tidings o' salvation. 

The change in the text was made at the sug- 
gestion of Dr. Blair. 

Page 16, /25. Var. The vera sight o' Saw- 
nie's face. 

Page 16, / 26. Var. Tae hell wi' speed 
had sent him. 

Page 16, /41. Var. 

Gcordie begins his cauld harangues. 

The Rev. George Smith, minister at Galston. 

Page 16, / 42. Var. On practice and of 
morals. 

Page 17, /12. Var. 

For sairy Willy water-flt. 

The Rev. William Peebles, minister of New- 
toaupon-Ayr. 

Page \j, I 17. A street .so called, which. 
faros tho tent in Mauchline. R. B. 



284 



NOTES. 



Page 17, 1 19. The Rev. W. Miller, assistant 
preacher at Auchinleck, and afterwards minister 
of Kilmaurs, near Kilmarnock. He was of short 
Stature. 

t'nge iS, /13. Var. 

BlacU Jock 13 im spainis. 

The Rev. John Russel, minister of the Chapel 
of Ease, Kilmarnock. 

Page 18, / 17. Shakespeare's Hamlet. R. B. 

Page 18, / 32. Var. How ylll gaed round 
in jugs an* caups. 

Page 18, / 37. Var. Then comes a gaucle, 
gash guidwife. 

Page 19. The composition of ' Death and 
Doctor Hornbook ' was suggested by the cir- 
cumstances related in the Preface. It was 
composed rapidly. Burns met the apothecary 
at a meeting of the Tarbolton Masonic lodge, 
and the next afternoon he repeated the entire 
poem to Gilbert. With reference to its compo- 
sition, Mr. Allan Cunningham supplies the fol- 
lowing tradition, which is nonsense on the face 
of it. 

' On his way home.' — from the Masonic meet- 
ing — ' the Poet found a neighbour lying tipsy 
by the road-side ; the idea of Death flashed on 
his fancy, and seating himself on the parapet of 
a bridge, he composed the poem, fell asleep, and 
when awakened by the morning sun, he recol- 
lected it all, and wrote it down on reaching 
Mossgiel.' 

The laughter occasioned by the publication 
of the satire drove, it is said, John Wilson, 
schoolmaster and apothecary, out of the county. 
He ultimately settled in Glasgow, became Ses- 
sion Clerk of the Gorbals, and died in 1839. 
'Death and Doctor Hornbook' first appeared 
in the Edinburgh edition of the poems. 

Page 19, / 29. In all the editions up to 1794 
.this line stood : 

Great lies and nonsense baitli to vend. 

Page 19, / 37. Mr. Robert Wright, in his 
Life of Major-General James Wolfe, states that 
'Hell 'was the name given to the arched passage 
in Dublin which led into the area on the south 
side of Christ Church, and east of the law courts. 
A representation of the Devil, carved in oak, 
stood above the entrance. 

Page 20, / 32. This rencounter happened in 
seed-time, 1785. R. B. 

Page 21, /g. An epidemical fever was then 
raging in that country. R. B. 

Page 21, / 21. This gentleman, Dr. Horn- 
book, is, professionally, a brother of the Sove- 
ireign. Order of the Ferula, but by intuition and 
inspiration is at onct; an apothecary, surgeon, 
and physician. R. 1>. 

Pagi 21, /as, Buchan's Domestic Medicin«. 
R, B. 

Page 23, ly, The grave-digger. R. B. 



Page 24. The occasion of this poem was 
the erection of a new bridge across the river 
at Ayr, to supersede the inconvenient structure 
built in the reign of Alexander III. Mr. Bal- 
lantine, Burns' patron, and chief magistrate of 
the town, was mainly instrumental in raising 
funds for the work ; and to him the poem is 
dedicated. 

Page 25, / 15. A noted taverrt at the Auld 
Brig end. R. B. 

Page 25, / 20. Var. 

The drowsy steeple clock had numbered two. 

The two steeples. R. B. The ' Dungeon 
Clock ' in this, and the ' Wallace Tow'r ' in the 
following line. 

Page 25, / 28. Var. 
AThen, lo ! before our Hardie's wond'ringe'en 
The Brigs of Ayr's twa sprites are seen. 

Page 25, / 31. The Gos-hawk or Falcoa. 
R. B. 

Page 26, / II & 12. This couplet — the most 
picturesque and memorable in the poem — does 
not occur in the MS. copy. 

Page 26, / 15. A noted ford, just above the 
AuId'Brig. R. B. 

Page 26, / 30. Var. 

Or liauntcd Garpal draws its feeble source. 

The banks of Garpal water is one of the few. 
places in the west of Scotland where those fancy- 
scaring beings known by the name of Ghaisls 
still continue pertinaciously to inhabit. R. B. 

Page 26, /31. J'ar. Aroused by blust'ring 
winds an' spotted thowes. 

Page 26, / 35. ' Glenbuck,' the source of the 
river Ayr, R. B. 

Page 26, i 2^. ' Ratton-Key, a small land- 
ing-place above the large key. R. B. 

Page 28, / 3. Var. "To liken them to )our 
auld warld bodies. 

Page 28, 74. Var. I must needs say com- 
parisons are odious. 

Page rS, / 14. Var. Plain kind stupidity 
stept kindly in to aid them. 

Page 28, / 25. A well-known performer of 
Scottish music on the violin. R. B. 

Page 28, / 49. A stream near Coilsfield. 

Page 28, /si. Mrs. Stewart of Stair. 

Page 29, / 2. The seat of Professor Dugald 
Stewart. 

Page 29. 'The Ordination' was composed 
on the Rev. Mr. Mackinlay being called to Kil- 
marnock. It was first printed in the .second 
edition of the Poems, 

Paj^e 2gy /17. Alluding to a scoffing ballad 
which was made on the admission of the late 
reverend and worthy Mr. Lindsay to the Laigh 
Kirk. KB, 



mm 3. 



28s 



Page 29, / 3, 2 col. Var. 

Formula and confession: 
An' lay your hands upon his head, 
An' seal his high commission, 
The holy flocli to tent au' Iced. 

Page 30, / 15, 2 col. Var. 

Will clap him In the torture. 

Page 30, / 21, 2 col. 'New Light' is a cant 
phrase in the west of Scotland for those reli- 
gious opinions which Dr. Taylor of Norwich 
has so strenuously defended. R. B. 

Page 30, / 28. V/ith reference to this piece 
Burns wrote to a correspondent : — * Warm recol- 
lection of an absent friend presses so hard upon 
my heart, tliat I .send him the prefixed bagatelle, 
pleased with the thought that it will greet the 
man of my bosom, and be a kind of distant lan- 
guage of friendship. ... It was merely an ex- 
temporaneous production, on a wager with Mr. 
Hamilton that I would not produce a poem on 
the subject in a given time.' The Rev. Mr. 
Steven was afterwards minister of one of the 
Scotch churches in London — where, in 1790, 
William Burns, the Poet's brother, heard him 
preach — and he finally settled at Kilwinning in 
Ayrshire, where he died in \^»a,. 

Page 31. Gilbert Burns says: *It was, \ 
think, in the winter of 1784, as we were going 
together with carts for coal to the family fire 
(and I could yet point out the particular spot), 
that the author first repeated to me the ' ' Address 
to the Deil." The curious idea of such an 
address was suggested to him by turning over 
in his mind the many ludicrous accounts and 
representations we have from various quarters 
of this august personage.' 

Page 32, / 13. This stanza was originally as 
follows : — 

L.ing syne in Eden's happy scene, 
When strappin' Adam's days were green, 
And Eve was like my bonic Jean, 

My dearest part, 
A dancin , sweet, young, handsomo quean, 
Wl' guileless heart. 

Page 32, / II, 2 col. 
R. B. 



Vide Milton, Book vi. 



Page 32, / 29. This was one of Burns' ear- 
liest poem.s, the first indication of that peculiar 
moral humour of which the 'Twa Dogs' is the 
finest example. It was written before 1784, and 
Gilbert Burns informed Dr. Currie that *the 
circumstances of, the poor sheep were pretty 
much as he has described them : he had, partly 
by way of frolic, bought a ewe and two lambs 
from a neighbour, and she was tethertid in a field 
adjuiiling the house at Lochlea. He and I were 
going out with our teams, and our two younger 
brothers to drive for us, at mid-day, when Hugh 
Wilson, a curioiis-looking, awkward lad, clad in 
plaidir>g, came to us with much an.xicty in his 
face, with the information that the ewe had 
entangled hei*self in the tether, and was lying 
in the ditch. Robert was much tickled with 
Hughoc's ftppearance and postures on the occa- 
sion. Poor Mailie was set to rights, and when 



we returned from the plough in the evening he 
repeated to me her " Death and Dying Words' 
pretty much in the way they now stand.' 

Page 32, / 34. A neibor herd callan. R. B. 
' In a copy of this poem in the Poets handwrit- 
ing, possessed by Miss Grace Aiken, Ayr, a 
more descriptive note is here given. " Hughoc 
was an odd, glowran, gapin' callan, about three- 
fourths as wise as other folk." ' Chambers. 

Page 33, / 26, 2 col. This stanza was origin- 
ally written : — 

She was nae get o' runted rams, 

Wi' woo' like goats, and legs like trams ; 

She was tiie flower o' Fairlie lambs, 

A famous breed : 
Now Robin, greetln', chows the hams 

O' Mailie dead. 

Page 34. Mr. James Smith was, when this 
epistle was written, a shopkeeper in Mauch- 
line. He afterwards removed to Avon near 
Linlithgow, where he established a calico-print- 
ing manufactory. Being unsuccessful in his 
speculations, he emigrated to the- West Indies; 
where he died. 

Page 35, / 19, 2 col. George Dempster^ Esq. 
of Dunnichen. 

Page 36. Certain of Burns' friends— Mrs. 
Dunlop, and Mrs. Stewart of Stair — con- 
sidered the ' Dream ' to contain perilous stuff. 
These ladies, it is said, vainly solicited the Poet 
to omit it in the second edition of his poems. 
The ' Dream,' if not a high, is a very charac- 
teristic effort : there never was an easier hand- 
gallop of verse. 

Page 36, / 14, 2 col. An allusion to the loss 
of the North American colonies. 

Page 37, / 7. * Oh the supplies for the Navy 
being voted, Spring 1786, Captain Macbride 
counselled some changes in that force, parti- 
cularly the giving up of sixty-four gun-ships, 
which occasioned a good deal of discussion.* 
Chambers. 

Page 37, / 35. Charles James Fox. 

Page 2,1 > I 6, 2 col Frederick, Bishop of 
Osnaburg, afterwards Duke of York. 

Page 37, / 15, 2 col. William, afterwards 
Duke of Clarence, and King William IV. 

Page 37, / 17, 2 col. Alliiding to the news- 
paper account of a certain royal sailor's amour. 
R. B. 

Page 38. Duan, a term of 0.<sian's for the 
different divisions of a digressive poem. See 
his 'Cath-Loda,' vol. ii. of McPherson's trans- 
lation. R. B. 

Page 38, / 27, 2 col. This line supplies a cu- 
rious instance of the fluctuations of Burns' mind 
and passion. It was originally written as it 
stands in the text, but in the bitter feeling in- 
duced by the destruction of the marriage lines 
he had given to Jean Armour he transferred 



286 



NO TICS. 



the compliment to the reigning favourite of the 
hour. In the first edition the line stood — 

And such a leg; my Bes!», I ween. 
In the Edinburgh edition, the old affection being 
in the ascendant again, the Inic was restored to 
itb original shape. 

Page 39, / 19. This and the six following 
stanzas ajji-carcd for the lirst time in the second 
edition. 

Page 39, / 26. The Wallaces.* R B. 

Page 39, / X, 2 col. William Wallace. R, 13. 

Page 39, / 2, 2 col. Adam Wallace of 
Richardton, cousin of the immortal preserver 
of Scottish independence. R. B. 

Page 39, / 3, 2 col Wallace, Laird of 
Craigie, who wa:> second in command, under 
Douglas, Earl of Ormond, at the famous battle 
on the banks of the Sark, fought anno 1448. 
That glorious victory was principally' owing to 
the judicious conduct and intrepid valour of the 
gallant Laira ot Craigie, who died ,of his wounds 
after the action. R. B. 

Page 39, / 7 ' col. Coilus, King of the 
Picts, from whom the district of Kyle is said to 
take its name, lies, buried, as tradition says, near 
the family seat of the Montgomenes of Coils- 
field, w here his burial-place is still shown. R. B. 

Page 39, / 13. 7. col. Barskimming, the seat 
of the Lord Justice Clerk. R. B. (Sir Thomas 
Miller of Glenlee, afterwards President of the 
Court of Session.) 

Page 39, / 19, 2 col. Catrine, the seat of the 
late Doctor, and present Professor, Stewart. 
R. B. 

Page 39, / 25, 2 col. Colonel Fullarton. R.B. 



Page 41, / 18, 2 col. 
second volume of Mr. 



In th^ Appendix to the 
Robert Chambers' 'Life 
and Works of Burns' are printed the following 
additional stanzas of the 'Vision,' taken from a 
MS. in the possession of Mr. Dick, bookseller, 
Ayr. After the i8th stanza of printed copies :— 

With .secret throe.<? T m.irk'd that earth. 
That cottage, witness of my birth ; 
And near f saw, bold issuing fortli. 

In youthful pride, 
A Lindiiay, race of noble worth, 

Tamed far and wide. 
Where, hid behind a spreading wood, 
An ancient Pict-built mansion stood, 
I spied, among an angel brood, 

A female pair; 
Sweet shone their high maternal blood 

And father's air. 
An ancient-tower to memory brought 
How Dettingen's bold hero fouglit ; 
Still, far from sinking into nought. 

It owns a lord 
M'ho ' far in western ' climates fought 

With trusty sword. 
There, where a sceptred Pictish shade 
St&lk'd round his ashes Icvyly laid, 
I saw a martial racti portray d 

In colours strong ; 
Bold, Bodger-featured, undHinny'd, 

They stalked nlong. 



Among the rest I well could spy 
One ;^allant, graceful, martial boy; 
The ..jodgcr sparkled in his eye, 

A diuniond water ; 
1 blest that noble badge with joy 

Tliat owned me fiater. * 

After the 20th stanza : — 

Near by arose .a mansion fine. 
The seat ot many a Muse divine; 
Not ru.stic Muses .such a.s mine. 

With holly crowned. 
But th' ancient, tuneful, laurelled nine 

From ckissic ground. 
1 mourned the card that fortune dealt. 
To see where bonie Whitefoords dwelt ; 
Hut other prospcct.s made me uielt,- 

Tliat \illago near. * 
There natuio, frieiid.sliip, love, I felt. 

Fond— niingling dear. 
Ilail nature's pang, more .strong than death '. 
Warm tViondsnip's glow, like kindling wrath'. 
Love, dearer than the parting breath 

Ot dying frieixl I 
Kot even with lile's wild devious path 

Your force shall end. 
The power that gave the soft alarms 
Jn blooming Whitefoords' rosy charms. 
Still threats the tiny-teathere'd arms, 

The barbed dart. 
While lovely Wllhclmina charms 

The coldest heart. 

After the 21st : — 

W'here Lugar leave.s his moorl.ind plaid. 
Where lately Want was idly laid, 
1 marked biisy, bustling Trade 

III fervid flame. 
Beneath a patroness's air 

Of noble name. 
While countless hills I could survey. 
And countless tlocks as well as they ; 
But oth^r scenes did charms display 

That better please, 
Where polished manners dwelt with Gray 

In rural ease. 
Where Cessnock flows with gurgling sound. 
And Irwinc marking out the bound, 
Enamoured ol the scenes around. 

Slow runs Viis race, 
A name I doubly honoured found 

With knightly grace. 
Brydone's brave ward I saw him stand, 
Fame humbly otferingher hand. 
And near liis kinsman's rustic band 

With one accord 
Lamenting their late blessed land 

Must change its li;)rd. 
The oAvner of a nloasant spot, 
Near sandy wilds I did him note: 
A heart too warm, a pul.sc too hot. 

At times o'erran. 
But, large in every, feature wrote, 

'Appeared* the man. 

Page 41, / ig. This poem was first printed in 
the second edition of Burns' works. 

Page 42, /17. When this worthy old sport.s- 
man went out last muir-fowl season, he supposed 
it was to be, in Ossian's phrase, * the last of his 
fields,' and expressed an ardent desire to die and 
be buried in the muirs. On this hint the author 
composed his Elegy and Epitaph, R. B. 

• C«ptaln James Montgomery, -Master of St. James's 
Lodge, Torbolton, to which the author hM tha honour 
to belong. R. 0. 



NOTES, 



287 



Page 42, / 33. A certain preacher, a great 
favourite with the million. Vide the * Ordina- 
tion,' stanza ii. R. B. 

Page 42, / 34. Another preacher, an equal 
favourite with the few, who was at that time 
ailing. For him see also the 'Ordination,' 
stanza ix. R. B. 

Pnge 43, / 25. This stanza does not appear 
in the Edinburgh edition. 

Page 43, / 22, col 2. Killie is a phrase the 
country folk sometimes use for the name of a 
certain town in the west (Kilmarnock). R. B. 

Page 48. The scene of the ' Jolly Begg irs ' 
was the Change house of Poosie Nansie's in 
Mauchline, a favourite haunt of all kinds of 
vagrants. It is said that Burns witnessed the 
circumstances which gave rise to the poem in 
company with his friend James Smith. Although 
the most dramatic of all Burns' performances, it 
was not ft favourite with his mother and brother, 
and he never seems to have thought it worthy 
of publication. Mr. George Thomson had heard 
of its existence, and in 1793 wrote the Poet on 
the subject. Burns replied, ' I have forgot the 
cantata you allude to, as I kept no copy, and, 
indeed, did not know of its existence ; however, 
I remember that none of the songs pleased my- 
self except the last, something about 
• Courts for cowards were erected, 
Churches built to please the priest.' 

It was fisst published in Glasgow in 1801. 

Pnge 48, / 34. The heights of Abraham, 
where Wolfe gloriously fell. 

Page 48, / 36. ' El Morro, the castle which 
defends tlie entrance to the harbour of Santiago, 
or St. Jago, a smalt island near the southern 
shore of Cuba. It is situated on an eminence, 
the abutments being cut out of the limestone 
rock. Logan's Notes 0/ a Toitr, dr'c. Edi7i- 
burgh, 1838. In 1762 this castle was stormed 
and taken by the British, after which the Havana 
was surrendered, with spoil to the value of three 
millions.' Chambers. 

Page 48, / 41. Captain Curtis, who destroyed 
the Spanish floating batteries during the siege 
of Gibraltar. 

Page i,%y 1 1,2,. The defender of Gibraltar, 
George Augustus Elliot, created Lord Heath- 
field for his services. 

Pi^ge 54. Gilbert Burns states that the " Verser. 
to the Mouse' were composed while thq author 
was holding the plough. Mr. Chambers relates 
a pleasant circumstance in relation to the event, 
and the poem to which it gave rise. ' John 
.Blane, who had acted as gaudsman to Burns, 
and who lived sixty years afterwards, had a dis- 
tinct recollection of the turning up of the mouse. 
Like a thoughtless youth as he was, he ran after 
the creature to kill it, but was checked and re- 
called by his master, who he observed became 
thereafter thoughtful and abstracted. Burns, 
who treated his servants with the familiarity of 



fellow-labourers, soon after read the poem to 
Blane. ' The gaudsman's rush after the terrified 
creature may have suggested the lines : — . 

• I wad be laith to rln an' chase thee, 
Wl' raurd'ring pattle.' 

P(ige 55- * A Winter Night' was first printed 
in the second edition of the poems. 

P(^ge 57- Davie was David Sillar, a member 
of the Torbolton Club, and author of a volume 
of poems printed at Kilmarnock in 1789., Gil- 
bert Burns states that the ' Epistle ' was among 
the earliest of his brother's poems. * It was,' he 
adds, * I think, in summer, 1784, when, in the 
interval of harder labour, he and I were weeding 
in the garden (kailyard) that he repeated to me 
the principal part of the epistle. I believe the 
first idea of Robert's becoming an author was 
started on this occasion. I was much pleased 
with the epistle, and said to him I was of opinion 
it would bear being printed, and that it would 
be well received by people of taste ; that I 
thought it at least equal, if not superior, to many 
of Allan Ramsay's epistles ; and that the merit 
of these, and much other Scottish poetry, seemed 
to consist in the knack of the expression ; but 
here there was a stream of interesting sentiment, 
and the Scotticism of the language scarcely 
seemed affected, but appeared to be the natural 
language of the poet ; that, besides, there was 
certainly some novelty in a poet pointing out 
the consolations that were in store for him when 
he should go a-begging. Robert seemed very 
well pleased with my criticism, and we talked 
of sending it to some magazine ; but as the plan 
afforded no opportunity of how it would take, 
the idea was dropped.' 

Page 57, / 37. Ramsay. R. B. 

P^fC^. 59- With reference to the poem Gil- 
bert Burns writes, * It is scarcely necessary to 
mention that the " Lament " was composed on 
that unfortunate passage of his matrimonial his- 
tory which I have mentioned in my letter to 
Mrs. Dunlop, after the first distraction of his 
feelings had a little subsided.* 

Page 61, I g. Dr. Young. R. B. 

Page 61. Gilbert Bums, in writing of the 
* Cotter's Saturday Night,' says, ' Robert had 
frequently remarked to me, that he thought 
there was something peculiarly venerable in the 
phrase, " Let us worship God," used by a decent 
sober head of a family introducing family wor- 
ship. To this sentiment of the author the world 
is indebted for the " Cotter's Saturday Night." 
The hint of the plan and title of the poem were 
taken from Fergusson's "Farmer's Ingle." 
When Robert had not some pleasure in view in 
which I was not thought fit to participate, we 
used frequently to walk together, wnen the 
weather was favourable, on the Sunday after- 
noons (those precious breathing times to the 
labouring part of the commynity), and enjoyed 
such Sundays as would make one regret to see 
their number abridged. It was in one of these 
walks that I first had the pleasure of hearing the 



288 



NOTES. 



author repeat the " Cotter's Saturday Night." 
I do not recollect to have reader heard anything 
by which I was more highly electrified. The fifth 
and sixth stanzas, and the eighteenth, thrilled 
with a peculiar ecstasy through my soul.' 

Page 62, / 8. Var- Does a' his weary kiaugh . 
and care beguile. First Edinb. edition. 

Page 65, / 7. Pope's ' Windsor Forest.' R. B. 

Page 65, I 23. Var. 

That strcam'd thro' great unhappy Wallace' heart. 
First d7id second edition. 

Page 65. Gilbert Burns writes, ' Several of 
the poems were produced for the purpose of 
bringing forward some favo-urite sentiment of 
the author. He used to remark to me that he , 
could not well conceive a more mortifying pic- 
ture of human life than a man seeking work. In 
casting about in his mind how this sentiment 
might be brought forward, the elegy ' Main was 
inade to Mourn' was composed. 

Page 66, / 33. In Burns' memoranda the 
following passage is prefixed to the prayer: 'A 
prayer, when fainting fits, and other alarming 
symptoms of pleurisy, or some other dangerous 
disorder, which indeed still threatens me, first 
put nature on the alarm.' 

Page 67, 1 14. Var. Again by passion would 
be led astray. 

Page 6t, 1 20. Var. 
If one so black with crimes dare call on Thee. 

Pnge 67, / 24. Var. 

Those rapid headlong passions to confine. 

Page 67, 1 25. Var. 

For all unfit my native powers be. 

Page 67, / 28. 'The first time,' says Gilbert 
Burns, * Robert heard the spinnet played iipon 
was at the house of Dr. Laurie, then minister 
■,gf the parish of Loudon, now in Glasgow, 
having given up the parish in favour' of his son. 
Dr. Laurie has several daughters : one of them 
played ; the father and mother led down the 
dance; the rest of the sisters, the. brother, the 
Poet, and the other guests, mixed in it. It was 
a delightful family scene for pur Poet, then 
lately introduced to the world. His mind was 
roused to a poetic enthusiasm, 'and the stanzas 
were left in' the room where he slept.' Mr. 
Chambers states that the morning after the 
dance Burns did not make his appearance at 
the breakfast table at the usual hour. Dr. 
Laurie's son went to inquire for him, and met 
him on the stair. The young man asked Burns 
if he had slept well. ' Not well,' was the reply : 
' the fact is, I have been praying half the night. 
If you go up to my room, you will find my 
prayer on the table.' 

Page 68, / 2T. ■ In Burns' memoranda the 
poem appears with the following sentences 

f)refixed: 'There was a certain period of my 
ife that my spirit was broke by repeated losses 
and disasters, which threatened, and. indeed 



effected, the utter ruin of my fortune. My 
body, too, waa attacked by that most dreadful 
disorder, a hypochondria or confirmed melan- 
choly. In this wretched state, the recollection 
of which makes me yet shudder, I hung my 
harp on the willow-trees, except in some lucid 
intervals, iii one of which I composed the fol- 
lowing.' 

Page 70, / 13. This poem was addressed to 
Andrew Aitken, son of the poet's patron, Robert 
Aitken, to whom the ' Cotter's Saturday Night ' 
was dedicated. Mr. Chambers states that 
Mr. Niven of Kilbride always alleged that the 
' Epistle ' was originally addressed to him. 

Page 70, / 22, col. 2. After this line, in a 
copy of the poem in Burns' handwriting, the 
following stanza occurs : — 

If ye Iiae made a step aside, 

Some hap mistake p.'erta'eti you, 
Yet still keep up a dedent pride, 

And ne'er o'er fai- demean you. 
Time comes wi' kind oblivious shade; 

And daily darker sets it v 
And if nae'mair mistakes are made. 

The world soon forgets it. 

Page 71. Burns \vhen meditating emigration 
to the West Indies was in gloomy mood 
enough, and in this ode, although in it he 
mocks at. fortune, there are not wanting touches 
of bitterness, which are all the more effective 
from the prevalent lightness and gaiety by 
which they are surrounded. 

Page 71, / 29. Var. 

Our billle, Rob, has ta'en a jink. 

Page 71, / 35. Var. 

lie's canter't to anither shore. , 

Page 71, /'38. Va>^. 

An' pray kind Fortune to redress him. 

Page 71, I 29- Vav, 

'Twill gar hor poor, auld heart, 1 fear. 

Page 71, / 20, coLz: 'Var. 

An' scarce a bellyfu' 'b drummock. 

Page 71, / 37, col. 2. Var. 

Then fare you weel, my rhymin biUie! 

Page 71, / '7. This poem did not appear in 
the first edition. 

Page 72. In the ' Caledonian Mercury,' of 
date 20th Decembcr,i786,in which the 'Haggis' 
was printed, apparently for the first time, the 
concluding stanza appears as -follows : — 

Ve Pow'rs wha pie us a' that's jyude, 

Still bless aiild Caledonia's brood 

>Vi' great Jolin Uarloycorn's heart '^'blude, 

In stowps or lagsrie.'s ; 
An' on our board th.at king of food, . 

A glorious Ilaggice. 

Page 72. The dedication to Gavin Hamilton, 
the poet s friend and patrori, did not, as might 
have been expected, open the volume published 
at Kilmarnock. It, however, finds its place in 
the body of the work. 



NOTES. 



289 



Page 74, / 30. The ' lady ' referred to in this 
line was, Mr. Chambers informs us, a village 
belle. He adds that her name was well known 
in Mauchline, 

P"S^ 75- Ihls Address was written in Edin- 
burgh in 1786. 

Page 75, / 29. * Fair Burnet ' was the daugh- 
ter of Lord Monboddo. Burns' admiration for 
her was intense. 

Page 75. ' The Epistle to John Lapraik was 
produced,' says Gilbert Burns, ' exactly on the 
occasion described by' the author. It was at 
one of these rockings at our house, when we 
had twelve or fifteen young people with their 
roc/cs, that Lapraik's song, beginning," When I 
upon thy bosom lean," was sung, and we were 
informed who was the author. Upon this Robert 
wrote his first epistle to Lapraik ; and his second 
was in. reply to his answer.' 

Page 78. William Simpson was the school- 
master of Ochiltree parish. 

Page 80. The postscript to the foregoing 
' Epistle ' may be considered as a pendant to 
' The Twa Herds,' which was making a noise in 
Ayrshire at the time. 

Page 81. John Rankine lived at Adam-hill, 
in Ayrshire ; he was a man of much humour, 
and was one of Burns' earliest friends. 

Page Si, I ^. A 'certain humorous dream of 
his was then making noise in the country-side. 
R. B. Of this dream the substance is thus 

related by Allan Cunningham. ' Lord K 

was in the habit of calling his familiar acquaint- 
ances "brutes" or "damned brutes." One day 
meeting Rankine, his lordship said, " Brute, 
are ye dumb? have ye no queer story to tell us?" 
"I have nae story," said Rankine, "but last 
night I had an odd dream." "Out with it, 
by all means," said the other. "A weel, 
ye see," said Rankine, "I dreamed that I 
was dead, and that for keeping other than good 
company on earth, I was damned. When I 
knocked at hell-door, wha should open it but 
the deil ; he was in a rough humour, and said, 
'Wha may you be, and what's your name?' 
* My name,' quoth I, ' is John RanUine, and my 
dwelling-place was Adam-hill.' 'Giwa'^wi',' 
quoth Satan, ' ye canna be here ; yer ane of 

Lord K 's damned brutes : Hell's fou o' them 

already \"' ' This sharp rebuke, it is said, 
polished for the future his lordship's speech. 
The trick alluded to in the same line was Ran- 
kine's making tipsy one of the 'unco gude.' 



Page 8r, / 29. 
lUthor. 



A song he had promised the 



Page 82. Friar's Carse was the estate of 
Captain Riddel, of Glenriddel, beautifully situ- 
ated on the banks of the Nith, near Ellisland. 
The Hermitage was a decorated cottage, which 
the proprietor had erected. 



Page 82, 16. In a copy printed in the Gen- 
tleman^s Magazine the following couplet occurs 
here: — 

Day — how rapid in its flig'ht ! 

Day — ho^ few must see the tiight ! 

Page 82, / 10. Var. 

Beneath thy morning sun advance. Cent's. Mag- 
Page S2, i 25. Var. 

When thy sliadcs of ev'ning close. Gent's. 31ag. 

Page 82, / 33. Far. 

genuine estimate 
Say the criterion of their fate 
The important query of tlieir state, 
Is not, &c. Gent's. Slag- 
Page 82, / 36. Va?: 

ebb or flow? 
Wert thou cottager or lung, 
Peer or peasant? — No such tiling. 
Tell them, &c.. Gent's. Mag. 

Page 82, / 22, coi 2. Var. 

Fame, a restless airy dream. Gent's. Mag. 

Page 82, / 23, col 2. Var- 

Pleasures, in'sccts on the wing ; 
Round peace, the tenderest flower of spring. 
Gent's. Mag. 

Page 82, / 26, col 2. Var. 

Make the butterflies their own. Gent's. Mag. 

Page 82, / 31, col 2. Va^. 

But thy utmost duty done. Gent's. 3Iag. 

Page 82, / 42, col 2. Var. 

Quod the Bedesman on Nitheside. Gent's. Mag. 

Page 83. The subject of this ode was the 
widow of Richard Oswald, Esq. ofAuchincruive. 
She died December 6, 1788. Burns himself 
states the cause of its composition. ' In 
January last, on my road to Ayrshire, I had to 
put up at Bailie Whigham's, in Sanquhar, the 
only tolerable inn in the place. The frost was 
keen, and the grim evening and howling wind 
were u.shering in a night of snow and drift. 
My horse and I were both mruch fatigued by 
the labours of the day ; and just as my friend 
the Bailie and I were bidding' defiance to the 
storm, over a smoking bowl, in wheels the 
funereal pageantry of the late Rlrs. Oswald, and 
poor I am forced to brave all the terrors of the 
tempestuous night, and jade my horse — my 
young favourite horse, whom I had just christ- 
ened Pegasus— farther on through the wildest 
hills and moors of Ayrshire to the next inn. 
The powers of poetry and prbse sink inider me 
when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it 
to say, that when a good fire at New Cunuiock 
had so far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat 
down and wrote the enclosed ode. ' Being dead, 
the poor lady could hardly be held responsible 
for disturbing the Poet's potations with his 
friend the Bailie ! 

Page 83. In February, 1791, Burns wrote 
respecting this poem : ' The Elegy on Cap- 
tain Henderson is a tribute to the memory 
of a man I loved much. ... As almost all my 
religous tenets originate from my heart, I am 



290 



NOTES, 



wonderfully pleased with the idea that I can 
still keep up a tender intercourse with the 
dearly beloved friend, or still more dearly 
beloved mistress, who is gone to the world of 
spirits.' 

Page 84. Readers curious in the transmis- 
sion of poetic ideas may amuse themselves 
by comparing this epitaph with Wordsworth's 
Poet's £j>itaph. 

Page 85. Writing to Mrs. Graham, of Fintry, 
Burns says, ' Whether it is that the story, 
of our Mary, Queen of Scots, has a peculiar 
effect on the feelings of a poet, or whether 
I have in the enclosed ballad succeeded beyond 
my usual poetic success, I know not ; but it has 
pleased me beyond any effort of my muse for a 
good while past : on that account I enclose it 
particularly to you.' 

Page 86. Robert Graham, Esq. of Fintry, 
was one of the Commissioners of Excise. 
Burns met him at the house of the Duke 
of Athole. The 'Epistle' was the poet's 
earliest attempt in the manner of Pope. It has 
its merits, of course ; but it lacks the fire, ease, 
and sweetness of his earlier Epistles to Lapraik, 
Smith, and others. 

Page 88, / 10. * By a fall, not from my horse, 
but with my horse, I have been a cripple some 
time.' Burns to iSIrs. Dunlop, 7th February, 
1791. 

PageZ'i,, l\\. Var. 
The peopled fold thy kindly care have found ; 
The horned bull tremendous spurns the ground ; 
The lowly lion has enough and more, — 
The forest trembles at his very roar. 

.Page 88, / 14. Var. 
The puny wasp, victorious, guards his cell. 

Page 88, / 21. Var. 
Even silly women have dcfen.'sive arts— 
Their eyes, their tongues, and nanncless other parts. 

Page 88, / 29. Var. 

No claw.«( to dig, Jiis dreadcu sight to shun. 

Page 88, / 31. Var. 
No nerves olfactory, true to Mammon's fool ; 
Or grunting grub, sagacious, evil's root; 
Or grunting sago, to grub all-evil's root. 

Page 88, / 39. Alexander Munro, Professor 
of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh. 

Prt-^^ 88, / 46. Var. 

The hapless Poet flounces on through life. 

Page 89, / 31. James, Earl of Glencairn. 
See succeeding poem. 

Page 89. This nobleman, for whom the Poet 
had a deep respect, died at Falmouth, in 
his forty-second, year. Burns wore mourning 
for the Earl, and designed to attend his funeral 
in Ayrshire. He enclosed the poem to Lady 
Elizabeth Cunningham, sister of the deceased 
nobleman. 



Page 91. 'When my father,* writes Gil- 
bert Burns, 'feued his little property near 
Alloway Kirk, the wall of the churchyard had 
gone to ruin, and cattle had free liberty of 
pasture in it. . My father, with two or three 
other neighbours, joined in an application to 
the town council of Ayr, who were superiors of 
the adjoining land, for liberty to rebuild it, and 
raised by subscription a sum for enclosing this 
ancient cemetery with a wall ; hence he came 
to consider it as his burial-place, and we learned 
that reverence for it people generally have for 
the burial-place of their ancestors. My brother 
was living at Ellisland, when Captain Grose, 
on his peregrinations through Scotland, stayed 
some time at Carse House, in the neighbour- 
hood, with Captain Robert Riddel, of Glen- 
riddel, a particular friend of my brother's. 
The Antiquarian and the Poet were " unco 
pack and thick thegither." Robert requested 
of Captain Grose, when he should come to 
Ayrshire, that he would make a drawing of 
Alloway Kirk, as it was the burial-place of his 
father, and where he himself had a sort of 
claim to lay down his bones when they should 
be no longer serviceable to him ; and added, by 
way of encouragement, that it was the scene of 
many a good story of witches and apparitions, 
of which he knew the Captain was very fond. 
The Captain agreed to the request, provided 
the Poet would furnish a witch story, to be 
printed along with it. "Tarn o' Shanter"'w.as 
produced on this occasion, and was first pub- 
lished in Grose's "Antiquities of Scotland."' 
The following letter, sent by Burns to Captain 
Grose, deals with the witch stories that clustered 
round Alloway Kirk. 

'Among the many witch stories I have heard 
relating to Alloway Kirk, I distinctly remember 
only two or three. 

' Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls 
of wind and bitter blasts of hail — in short, on 
such a night as the devil would choose to take 
the air in — a farmer, or a farmer's servant, w.as 
plodding and plashing homeward with his 
plough-irons on his shoulder, having been 
getting some repairs on them at a neighbouring 
smithy. His way lay bj' the Kirk of Alloway, 
and being rather on the anxious look-out in 
approaching a place so well known to be a 
favourite haunt of the devil, and the devil's 
friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by 
discovering, through the horrors of the storm 
and stormy night, a light, which, on his nearer 
approach, plainly showed itself to proceed from 
the haunted edifice. Whether he had been 
fortified from above on his devout supplication, 
as is customary with people when they suspect 
the immediate presence of Satan, or whether, 
according to another custom, he had got 
courageously drunk at the "Smithy, I will not 
pretend to determine ; but so it v/as, that he 
ventured to go up to— nay, into — .ho very Kirk. 
As luck would have it, his temerity came off 
unpunished. 

'The members of the infern.al junto were nil 
out on some midnight business or other, and h« 



MT£S. 



291 



saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron, 
depending from the roof, over the fire, simmering 
some heads of unchristened children, limbs of 
executed malefactors, &c. for the business of the 
night. It was in for a penny, in for a pound, 
with the hortesfplo.ughman ; so, without cere- 
mony, he unhooked the caldron from off the 
fire, and pouring out its damnable ingredients, 
inverted it on his head, and carried it fairly 
home, where it remained long in the family, a 
living evidence of the truth of the story. 

'Another story, which I can prove to be equally 
authentic, was as follows : — 

' On a market-day, in the town of Ayr, a farmer 
from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay 
by the very gate of Alloway Kirk-yard, in order 
to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which 
is about two or three hundred yards farther on 
than the said gate, had been detained by his busi- 
ness, till by the time he reached Alloway it was 
the wizard hour, between night and morning. 

' Though he was terrified with a blaze stream- 
ing from the Kirk, yet as it is a well known fact, 
that to turn back on these occasions is running 
by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently 
advanced on his road. When he had reached 
the gate of the Kirk-yard, he was surprised and 
entertained, through the ribs and arches of an 
old Gothic window, which still faces the high- 
way, to see a dance of witches merrily footmg 
it round their old sooty blackguard master, who 
was keeping them all alive with the power of his 
bagpipe. The fanner, stopping his horse to ob- 
serve them a little, could plainly descry the faces 
of many of his acquaintance and heighbourhood. 
How the gentleman was dressed, tradition does 
not say, but that the ladies were all in their 
.smocks ; and one of thern happening unluckily 
to have a smock which was considerably tco 
short to answer all the purposes of that piece of 
dress, our farmer was so tickled that he involOn- 
tarily burst out, with a loud laugh, ",Weel looppen 
Maggy wi' the short sark ! " and, recollecting 
himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of 
his speed. I need not mention the universally 
known fact, that no diabolical power can pursue 
you beyond the middle of a running stream. 
lAicky>it svas for the poor farmer that the river 
Doon was so near, for notwitlistandinj; the speed 
of his horse, which was a good one, against he 
reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, 
and consequently the middle of the stream, the 
pursuing, vengeful hags were so close at his heels, 
that one of them actually sprafig to .seize him : 
l>iit it was too late ; nothing was on her side of 
the stream hut the horse's tail, which immediately 
gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a 
stroke of lightning ; but the farmer was beyond 
her reach. However, the unsightly, tailless con- 
dition of the vigorous steed was, to the last hours 
of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to 
the Carrick farmers not to stay too late in Ayr 
markets.* v^ 

This letter is interesting, as showing the actual 
body of tradition on which Burns had to work — 
the soil out pf which the consummate poem grew 
like a flower. And it is worthy of notice also 



how, out of the letter, some of the best thing? in 
the poem have come : ' such a night as the 
devil would choose to take the air in ' being, 
for instance, the suggestion of the couplet — 

That night a child might understand 
The Deii had business on his hand. 

It is pleasant to know that Burns thought well of 
'Tam o' Shanter.' 

To Mrs. Dunlop he wrote on the nth April, 
1791 : — ' On Saturday morning last Mrs. Bums 
made me a present of & fine boy, rather stouter, 
but not so handsome as your godson wag at his 
time of life. Indeed, I look on your little name- 
sake to be my chef-d'oeuvre in that species of 
manufacture, as I look on "Tam o' Shanter" 
to be my standard performance in the poetical 
line. "Tis true, both the one and the other dis- 
cover a spice of roguish waggery, that might, 
perhaps, be as well spared ; but then they also 
show, in mjr opinion, a force of genius, and a 
finishing polish, that I despair of ever excelling. ' 

Page 93, / 46. The following lines originally 
occurred here : — 

Three lawyers! tongues turned inside out, 
Wi' lies seamed, like a beggar's clout ; 
Three priests' hearts rotten, black as muck, 
Lay stinking, vile, in every neuk. 

They were omitted at the suggestion of Lord 
.Woodhouselee, 

Page 95, /8. It is a well-known fact, that 
witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to 
follow a poor wight any further than the middle 
of the next running stream. It may be proper 
likewise to mention to the benighted traveller 
that when he falls in with bogles, whatever 
■ danger may be in his going forward, there is 
much more hazard in turning back. R. B. 

Page 95, / 26. ' Tam o' Shanter,' as already 
stated, appeared first in Captain Grose's * An- 
tiquities of Scctland.' To the poem the editor 
appended the following note : ' To my ingenious 
friend, Mr. Robert Burns, I have been seriously 
obligated ; for he was not only at the pains of 
making out what was most worthy of notice in 
Ayrshire, the county honoured by his birth, but 
he also wrote expressly for this work the pretty 
tale annexed to Alloway Church.' Grose's book 
appeared at the close of April, i79i,and he died 
in Dublin shortly after. 

P(^ge 95. For information respecting Captain 
Grose's intimacy withBurns see preceding note. 

Pa^e r)S, / 27. Vide his 'Antiquities of Scot- 
land.' R B. 

Page 96, / 8. Vide his ' Treatise on Ancient 
Armour and Weapons.' R. B. 

Page 96, /27. Var. 

Seek, mangled innocent, some wonted form ! 

That wonted Ibrm, alas! thy dying bed ; 

Tho sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head. 
The cold earth with thy blood-stain 'd bosom warm. 
I'erhaps a mother's anguish adds its woo ; 

The playful pair crowd fondly by thy »ldc ; 

Ah! Iiolplc.ss nursling.-t, who will now provide 
That lite ft rfiothor only can bestow '/ 



292 



NOTES. 



Page 96, / 34. Var. 

And curse the ruthless wretch, and mourn thy hapless 
fate. 

The changes in this poem were made on the 
suggestion of Dr. Gregory, to vvhoni the Poet 
had sent a copy. 

Page 97. This poem was addressed to the 
daughter of Mr. William Cruii<shank, one of 
the masters of the High School of Edinburgh. 

Page 98. Bruar Falls, in Athol, are exceed- 
ingly picturesque and beautiful, but their effect 
is much impaired by the want of trees and shrubs. 
R. B. 

Page 98, / 19, col 2. Var. 

The bairdie, music's youngest child. 

Page 99, / II, col 2. JNIr. Walker in his letter 
to Dr. Currie, describing the impression Burns 
made at Blair, says, 'The Duke's fine family 
attracted much of his admiration ; he drank 
their health as hottest men and honie lasses, 
an idea which was much applauded by the 
company, and with, which, he has very felici- 
tously closed his poem.' 

Page 99. The occasion of the satire was 
as follows. In 1786 Dr. Wm. McGill, one of 
the ministers of Ayr, published an essay on 
'The Death of Jesus Christ,' which was de- 
nounced as heterodbx by Dr. Wm. Peebles, of 
Newton-upon-Ayr, in a sermon preached by 
him November 5th, 1788. Dr. McGill pub- 
lished a defence, and the case came before the 
Ayr presbyterj', and finally before the synod of 
Glasgow and Ayr. In August, 17S9, Burns 
wrote to Mr. Logan : ' I have, as you will 
shortly see, finished the " Kirk's Alarm ; " but 
now that it is done, and that I have laughed 
once or twice at the conceits of some of the 
stanzas, I am determined not to let it get into 
the public : so I send you this copy, the first I 
have sent to Ayrshire, except some few of the 
stanzas, which I wrote off in embryo for Gavin 
Hamilton, under the express provision and 
request that you will only read it to a few of 
us, and do not on any account give, or permit to 
be taken, any copy of the ballad.' With refe- 
rence to the ballad he wrote to Mr. Graham of 
Fintry : ' I laughed myself at some conceits in 
it, though I am convinced in my conscience 
that there are a good many heavy stanzas in it 
too.' 

Page (y^, 1 13. Var. 

Brother Scots, brother Scots, wha believe in John 
Knox. 

Page 99, / 17. Dr. McGill. 

Page (y), 1 18. Var. 

To strike wicked writers wi' terror. 

Page 99, 723. John Ballantyne, Esq. Provost 
of Ayr. 

Page 99, / 24. Mr. Robert Aitken. 

Page 99, / 25. Rev. Dr. Wm. Dalrympk. 



Page 99, / 29. Rev. John Russel : see ' Holy 
Fair.' 

Page 99, / 33. Rev. James Mackinlay : see 
* Ordination.' 

Page 100, / 1. Rev. Alexander Moodie : see 
' The Twa Herds. ' 

Page 100, / 5. Rev. Mr. Auld. 

Page 100, / 6. Mr. Gavin Hamilton. 

Page 100, I g. Mr. Grant, Ochiltree. 

Page 100, / 13. Mr. Young, Cumnock. 

Page 100, Ixj. Rev. Dr. Wm. Peeble.s. He 
had written a poem which contained a ridiculous 
line : — 

And bound in Liberty's endearing chain. 

Page 100, / 21. Dr. Andrew Mitchell, 
Monkton. 

Page 100, / 25. Rev. Stephen Young, Barr. 

Page 100, / 29. Rev. George Smith, Galston : 
see 'Holy Fair.' 

Page 100, / 33. 
kirk. 



Rev. John Shepherd, Muir- 



Page 100, / 37. Mr. William Fisher, the 
' Holy Willie ' of the famous satire. 

Page 1C2, / 2. Var. 

The eye with pleasure and amazement Alls 

Page 102. Miss Susan Dunlop, daughter of 
Mr. JDunlop, married a French gentleman 
named Henri. The young couple^nvere living 
at Loudon Castle when IVL Henri died, leaving 
his wife pregnant. The verses were written on 
the birth of a son and heir. Rlrs. Dunlop com- 
municated the intelligence to Burns, and received 
the following letter in return : ' "As cold waters 
to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far 
country ! " Fate has long owed me a letter of 
good news from you, in return for the many 
tidings of sorrow which I have received. In 
this instance I most cordially obey the Apostle' 
— " Rejoice with them that do rejoice." For me 
to sing for joy is no new thing ; but to preach 
for joy, as 1 have done in the commencement 
of this epistle, is a pitch of extravagant rapture 
to which I never rose before. I read your letter 
— I literally jumped for joy: how could such 
a mercurial creature as a poet lumpishly k;cep 
his seat on the receipt of the best news from his 
best friend ? I seized my gilt-headed Wangee 
rod, an instrument indispensably necessary, in 
my left hand, in the moment of inspiration and 
rapture ; and stride, stride — quick and quicker 
— out skipped I among the blooming banks of 
Nith, to muse over my joy by retail. To keep 
within the bounds of prose was impossible.' Mr. 
Chambers traces the future history of Mrs. 
Henri and her son : ' In a subsequent letter 
Burns deplores her (Mrs. Henri's) dangerous 
aind distressmg situation in France, exposed to 
the tumults of the Revolution : and he has soon 
after occasion to condole with his venerable 
friend on the death of her daughter in a foreiga 



NOTES. 



29^ 



land. When this sad event took place, the 
orphan child fell under the immediate care of 
his paternal grandfatiier, who, however, was 
soon obliged to take refuge in Switzerland, 
leaving the infant behind him. Years passed, 
he and the Scotch friends of the child heard 
nothing of it, and concluded that it was lost. 
At length, when the elder Henri was enabled to 
return to his ancestral domains, he had the un- 
speakable satisfaction of finding that his grand- 
son and heir was alive and well, having never 
been removed froni the place. The child had 
been protected and reared with the greatest 
care by a worthy female named Mademoiselle 
Susette, formerly a domestic in the family. 
This excellent person had even contrived, 
through all the levelling violence of the inter- 
vening period, to preserve in her young charge 
the feeling appropriate to his rank. Though 
absolutely indebted to her industry for his bread, 
she had caused him always to be seated by him- 
self at table and regularly waited on, so that the 
otherwise plebeian circumstances in which he 
lived did not greatly affect him. The subject 
of Burns' stanzas was, a very few years ago, 
proprietor of the family estates; and it is agree- 
able to .add that Mademoiselle Susette then 
lived in his paternal mansion, in the enjoyment 
of that grateful respect to which her fidelity and 
discretion so eminently entitled her.* 

Prtg^e 103. 'I'his epistle was prefixed to the 
edition of Sillar's poems, published in Kilmar- 
nock in 1789. 

Pnge ic}- The 'Inventory' was addressed 
to Mr. Aitken of Ayr, surveyor of taxes for the 
district. It was first printed in the Liverpool 
edition of the poems. 

/'<7jfr^ 105. 'As the authentic prose history of 
the Whistle is curious,' writes Burns, ' I shall 
here give it: — In the train of Anne of Den- 
mark,' when she came to Scotland with our 
James the Sixth, there came over also a Danish 
gentleman of gigantic stature and great prowess, 
and a matchless champion of Bacchus. He 
had a little ebony whistle, which at the com- 
mencement of the orgies he laid on the table ; 
and whoever was last able to blow it, everybody 
else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, 
was to carry off the whistle as a trophy of 
victory. The Dane produced credentials of his 
victories, without a single defeat, at the courts 
of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow. Warsaw, 
and several of the petty courts in Germany ; 
and challenged the Scots' Bacchanalians to the 
alternative of trying his prowess, or else 
acknowledging their inferioritv. After many 
overthrows on the part of the Scots, the Dane 
was encountered by Sir Robert Lawrie of 
Maxwelton, ancestor of the present worthy 
baronet of that name, who after three days' 
and three nights' hard contest, left the Scandi- 
navian under the table, 

Ami blew on the whistle h'n reiuiom ahrill. 
Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, 
afterwards lost the whistle to Walter Riddel of 



Glenriddel, who had married a sister of Sir 
Walter's. On Friday, the i6th October, 1690, 
at Friar's Carse, the whistle was once more 
contended for, as related in the ballad, by the 
present Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton ; 
Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, lineal de- 
scendant and representative of Walter Riddel, 
who won the whistle, and in whose family it 
had continued ; and Alexander Ferguson, Esq. 
of Craigdarroch, likewise descended of the 
great Sir Robert; which last gentleman carried 
off the hard-won honours of the field. R. B.' 

Oddly enough, on the i6th October, 1789, we 
have a letter from Biirns addressed to Captain 
Riddel, referring to the Bacchanalian contest. 
'Big with the idea of this important day at 
Friar'.s Carse, I have watched the elements and 
skies in the full persuasion that they would* 
announce it to the astonished world by some 
phenomena of terrific portent. Yesternight, 
till a very late hour, did I wait with anxious 
horror for the appearance of some comet firing 
half the sky, or aerial armies of sanguinary 
Scandinavians darting athwart the startled 
heaven, rapid as the ragged lightning, and 
horrid as the convulsions of nature that bury 
nation.s. 

'The elements, however, seem to take tl>e 
matter very quietly : they did not even usher 
in the morning with triple suns and a shower of 
blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes 
and the mighty clarct-shed of tke day. For 
me, as Thomson in his IVijiier says of the 
storm, i shall "Hear astonished, and astonished 
sing" 

The whistle and the m.an : I sing 
Tlie man that won tlie whistle.' 

And he concludes by wishing that the cap- 
tain's head 'may be crowned by laurels to- 
night, and free from aches to-morrow.' Burns 
. in his note is supposed to have made a mistake 
of a year. He says the whistle was contended 
for on Friday, the 16th October, 1790 ; but in 

1789 the i6th October fell on a Friday, and in 

1790 it fell on a Saturday. 

It is not quite clear what share the poet took 
in the fray. Allan Cunningham states that thC; 
whistle was contended for ' in the dining-roonv 
of Friar's Carse in Burns' presence, who drank 
bottle after bottle with the competitors, and 
seemed disposed to take irp the conqueror.* 
On the other hand, Mr. Hunter of Cockrune, 
in the parish of Closeburn, reports that he has 
a perfect recollection of the whole affair. He 
states that ' Burns was present the whole 
evening. He was invited to join the party to 
see that the gentlemen drank fair, and to com- 
memorate the day by writing a song. I recol- 
lect well that, when the dinner was over. Burns 
quitted the table, and went to a table in the 
same room, that w.is placed in a window that 
looked south-east ; and there he sat down for 
the night. I placed before him a bottle of nun, 
and another of brandy, which he did not finish, 
but left a good deal of each when he rose from 
the fable after the gentlemen had gone to beil. 
. . When the gentlemen were put to bed, 



294 



NOTES. 



Burns walked home without any assistance, 
not being the worse of drink. When Burns 
was sitting at the table in the window, he had 
lien, ink, and paper, which I brought him at 
his own recjuest. He now and then wrote on 
the paper, and while the gentlemen were sober, 
he turned round often, and chatted with them, 
but drank none of the claret which they were 
drinking. ... 1 heard him read aloud 
several parts of the poem, much to the amuse- 
ment of the three gentlemen.' It is just pos- 
sible that Burns is after all correct enough in 
his dates. His letter to Captain Riddel on the 
j6th October, 1789, although clear enough as 
to the impending ' claret-.shed,' hardly sug- 
gests that the writer txpected to be present. 
The theory that the revel had been originally 
arranged for that date, and, unknown to Burns, 
suddenly postponed for a year, would explain 
the matter. 
Page IDS, / 5. See Ossian s Carlo- thura. R.B. 
Page 105, / 9. See Johnson's 'Tour to the 
Hebrides.' R. B. , , . „ 

Page 107. Concerning this 'sketch Burns 
wrote to Mrs. Dunlop, April, 1789: — 

' I have a poetic whim in my head, which I 
at present dedicate, or rather inscribe, to the 
Right Hon. C. J. Fox ; biit how long that 
fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the 
first lines I have just rough -sketchfed as fcrMows.' 
The poet's M.S. of the "Sketch" is in the 
British Museum. Dr. Currie altered one pus- 
.sage as follows : — 

" With knowlertgfi .so vast, and with judgment so strong, 
No man with the half of 'cm eer went far wrong; 
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright, 
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right." 

Page 108. Burns had sent a letter to Dr. 
Blacklock, under charge of Robert Heron, 
detailing certain recent changes in his circum- 
stances. The letter miscarried, and Blacklock 
addressed Burns in the following epistle : — 

EtiDtbiit-gh, 'JAth August. 1789. 
Dear Burns, thou brother of my heart, 
Both for thy virtues and thy art; 
If art it may be called in thee, 
Which Nature's bounty large and free 
With pleasure on thy heart diffuses, 
And warms thy soul with all the Muses : 
Whether to laugh with easy grace 
Thy numbers move the sage's face, 
Or bid the softer passions fise, 
And ruthless souls with gfief surprise, 
•Tis Nature's voice distinctly felt. 
Thro' thee, her organ, thus to melt. 

' Most anxiously I wish to know 
With thee, of late, how matters go : 
Jlow keeps thy much-loved Jean her health? 
What promises thy farm of wealth ? 
Whether the Muse persisv* to smile. 
And all thv anxious cares beguile? 
Whether bright fancy keeps alive? 
And how thy darling infants thrive? 

' For me, with grief and sickness spent, 
Since I my journey homeward bent, 
Spirits depressed no more I mourn, 
But vigour, life, and'he.alth return. 
No more to gloomy thoughts a prey, 
I sleep all night, and live all day ; 
By turns my book and friend enjoy, 
And thus my circling hours employ ; 
Happy while yet these hours remain, 
If Burns could join the cheerful train. 
With wonted zeal, sincere and lervent, 
iiitlute onco more his humble servant, 

'Tuos. Blacklock.' 



To this graceful effusion, breathing interest 
and good wishes. Bums responded, in a light 
mood at fir.st, but which becomes overclouded 
with bitterness towards the close. 

Page 109. In writing to his brother Gilbert, 
nth. January, 1790, Burns says : — 

' We have got a set of very decent players 
here just now. I have seen them an evening 
or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me 
by the manager of the company, a Mr. Suther- 
land, who is a man of apparent worth. On 
New Year's Day evening, I gave him the follow- 
ing prologue, which he spouted to his audience 
with applause.' 

Page 109. . Miss Burnet, daughter of Lord 
Monboddo, celebrated in the Address in Edin- 
I'ltrgh. This elegy seems to have cost the poet 
considerable trouble. In a letter to Mr. Cun- . 
ningham, January, 1791, he says: — 'I have 
these several months been hammering at an 
elegy on the amiable and accomplished Miss 
Burnet I have got, and can get, no farther 
than the following fragment.' 

Page wo. This epistle is supposed to have 
been sent to Mr. Peter Stuart, of the 57rt»- 
newspaper. From the remonstrance which 
follows it would seem that the newspaper did 
not arrive with the punctuality which was 
desired. 

Page 111. Basil William, Lord Daer, son of 
the Earl of Selkirk, died in 1794, in his thirty- 
second year. Burns met him at Professor 
Dugald Stewart's villa at Catrine. 

Page III. Miss Fontcnelie was an actress 
at the Dumfries' Theatre. In sending her the 
address. Burns writes: 'Will the foregoine 
lines be of any service to you in your ap- 
proaching benefit-night? If they will, 1 shall 
be prouder of my muse than ever. They arc 
nearly extempore ; I know they have no great 
merit ; but though they should add but little to 
the entertainment of the evening, they give me 
the happiness of an opportunity to declare 
how much I have the honour to be, &c.' 
Page 112, / 2. yar. 
The Rights of Woman claim some small attention. 

Page 112, /g Var. 

Our second Right— but idle here is caution. 

Page T12, / 15. Var. 
Got drunk, would swagger, swear, kick up a riot. 

Page x-12, I 20. An ironical allusion to the 
saturnalia of the Caledonian Hunt. 

Page i\2, 1 24 Var. 

.Must fall before— 'tis dear, dear admiration. 

Page \i2, I 26. Var. 

And thence that life of life— immortal Love. 

Page J 13 Burns wrote Mr. -Thomson, 
July, 1794: ' I have presented a copy of your 
songs to the daughter of a much-honoured 
friend of mine, Mr. Graham of Fintry. I 
wrote, on the blank side of the title-page, \\\r 
following address to the young lady.' 



NOTES. 



29s 



Pa^e 113, / 35. Var. 

In strains divine and sacred numbers join'd. 

Page 113, 743. Vnr. 

As modest want the secret tale reveals. 

/'rtf^ 113, / 44. Var. 
While virtue, conscious, all the strain endears. 

J^nge 114. Gilbert Burns doubted whether 
the Poem on P»storal Poetry was written by 
his brother. Few readers, we fancy, can have 
any doubt on the matter. Burns is, unquestion- 
ably, the author. The whole poem is full of 
lines which are ' like autographs,' and the four 
closing stanzas are in the Poet's best manner. 

Page 114. With reference to these verses 
Rums, in 1795, wrote Mr. Thomson : ' Written 
on the blank leaf of a copy of the last edition. of 
my poems, presented to the lady whom, in so 
many fictitious reveries of passion, but with the 
most ardent sentiments of real friendship, I 
have so often sung under the name of Chloris.' 
The lady was Miss Jean Lorimer, daughter of 
a farmer residing at some little distance from 
Dumfries. Chloris was the most unfortunate 
of all Burns' heroines While very young she 
eloped with a pentleman named Whclpdale, 
a-nd was shortly after deserted by him. She 
died in 1831, having lived the greater portion 
of her life in ppnury. 

Page 115. Mr. Tytler had publl.shed an 
' Inquiry, Historical and Critical, into the Evi- 
dence against Mary Queeft of Scots.' 

Page 115, / 37. An artist, named Miers, 
was then practising in Edinburgh as a maker 
of silhouette portraits. Burns sat to him, and 
to Mr. Tytler he forwarded one of Miers' per- 
formances. 

Page 1x6. This sketch is descriptive of the 
family of Mr. Dunlop, ofDunlop. 

Page 116, / II. Afterwards General Dunlop, 
of Dunlop. 

Page 116, / 13. Miss Rachel Dunlop was 
making a sketch of Coila. 

Page 116, / 14. Miss Keith Dimlop, the 
youngest daughter. 

Page 116. Burns and Smellie were members 
of a club in Edinburgh called the Crochallan 
Fencibles. 

Page 117, / 8. Mrs. Riddel, of Woodlcy 
Park, was the lady satirized in these verses. 
Dr. Currie, in printing them, substituted 'Eliza' 
for Maria. 

Page 118. Miss Jessie Lewars attended 
Burns in his last ilhiess. 

Page 119. Mr. John Syme was one of the 
Poet's constant companions. He possessed great 
talent, and Dr. Curric wislied him to undertake 
the editing of the Poet's life and writings. 

Page 120, / 41. Mr. Mackenzie, surgeon, 
Mauchline, was believed to be the gentleman to 
wliom these lines were addressed. 



Page 122. In enclosing these verses to Mr. 
Creech, Burns writes : ' 'I'he enclosed I have 
just wrote, nearly extempore, in a solitary inn 
in Selkirk, after a miserable wet day's riding.* 

Page 122, / I. "Auld chuckje Reekie;" 
Edinburgh. 

Page 123. In a MS. in the possession of the 
Publisher the two last stanzas are given. 

Page 124. Ruisseaux : a play upon the Poet's 
own name. 

Page 125. Mrs. Scott, of Wauchope, Ro.v- 
burghshire, had sent a rhymed epistle to Burns, 
displaying considerable vigour of thought and 
neatness of expression. 

Pagei26, I $7. Var. 

These five and fifty summers past. 

Page I'zj, I s- Var. 

Frae Calvin's fountain-head they drank. 

Page T27, / 20. Var. 

Or nobly swing the Gospel club. 

Page 127, / 29. Var. 

While enemies wi' laughin' spite. 

Page ■12-j, 1 23- Var. 

liut cliiofly tlice.'.-iijostlc Auld. 

Page 127, / 36. Var. 
To gar them grce. 

Page 127, /3, col. 2. Var. 
I trust in heaven to see tlicin yet. 

Page 127, ^11, col. 2. Var. 

Auld Wodrpw lang has wrought mi.-ichief. 

Page 127, 1 \2,col. ■z. Var. 
We trusted death wad bring relief. 

Page 128. The Rev. Mr. M'Math was, 
when Burns addressed him. assistant and suc- 
cessor to the Rev. Peter Wodrow, minister of 
'i'arbolton. He is said to have been an ex- 
cellent preacher. 

Page 130. 'Holy Willie* was William Fisher, 
the leading elder in the Rev. Mr. Auld's session. 
He was afterwards found guilty of embezzlin.g 
money from the church offerings, and died in 
a ditch, into which he h.-jd fallen when drunk. 

Page 132, / T. Written while Burns was on 
a visit to Sir William Murray, of Ochtcrtyre. 

Page 132. Master Tootie was a dealer in 
cows, who lived in Mauchline. It was his 
practice to disguise the age of his cattle, by 
j polishing away the markings on their horns. 

Page 133. The newspaper contained some 
strictures on Burns' poetry. 

Page 134. John Maxwell, Esq.of Terraughty 
and iVlunches. He died in 1814, aged 94. 

Page 135, / I. It IS very doubtful whether 
Burns is the avithor of this piece publishcj by 
Croinek. 

QQ3 



296 



NOTES. 



Page 135. The 'Sketch' is a portion of a 
work, 'The Poet's Progress,' which Burns 
meditated, but of which hardly any portion 
seems to have ever been written. . The imme- 
diate object of his satire is said to have been his 
pubhsher Creech. 

Fwe 138, 1 17. This ode was fipt printed in 
a London newspaper.. 

Page \z^, I Z'V ^(^^^ 
Jjiin, cloudy, sunk beyond the western wave. 

Vage 140. Miss Ferrier, authoress oi Mar- 
riage and Destiny. 

Page 140. Burns' illegitimate daughter mar- 
ried Mr. John Bishop, overseer at Polkemmet, 
and died in 18 17. She is said to have been 
strikingly like her father. A coarser version of 
this piece is extant, entitled 'A Welcome to a 
Bastart Wean.' 

Page 141. In 1780 Mr. John Goldie, or 
Goudie, a tradesman in Kilmarnock, published 
a series of Essays touching the authority of the 
Scriptures. A second edition of the work ap- 
peared in 1785. Burns' epistle to him, although 
written when Ayrshire was convulsed with the 
New Light and Auld Light controversies, was 
not published till 1801. It appeared first in a 
Glasgow edition of the poems. 

Page 741, / 16, col 2. Dr. Taylor of Norwich, 
the autlior of a work eiuitled 'The Scripture 
iJoctrinc of Original Sin proposed to Free and 
Candid Examination,' which was extensively 
read by the New Lig/ft party in Ayrshire at the 
time. 

Page 141. Mr. James Tennant of Glenconner 
was an old friend of the Poet, and was consulted 
by him respecting the taking of the farm of 
Ellisland. 

Page 142. 'The Esopus of this strange epis- 
tle,' says Mr. Allan Cunningham, ' was VVilliam- 
son the actor, and the Maria to whom it was 
addressed was Mrs. Riddel.' While William- 
son and his brother actors were performing at 
Whitehaven, Lord Lon.sdale committed the 
whole to prison. 

Page 144. A person named Glendining, 
who took away his own life, was the subject of 
this epigram. Mr. I'unningham adds the fol- 
lowing particulars: 'My friend Dr. Copland 
Hutchison happened to be walking out that 
way' — to a place called the 'Old Chapel near 
Dumfries,' where Glendining had been interred. 
' He saw Burns with his foot on the grave, his 
hat on his knee, and paper laid on his hat, on 
which he was writing. He then took the paper, 
thrust it with his finger into the red mould of 
the grave, and went away. This was the above 
epigram, and such was the Poet's mode of pub- 
lishing it.' 

Page 144, / 10. These lines form the conclu- 
sion of a letter written by Burns to Mr. John 
Kennedy, dated August, 1786, while his inten- 
tion yet held of emigrating to Jamaica. 

Page 144. 'The Farewell' was written in 
the autumn of 1 786, when the idea of emigration 
was firmly fi.vcd in the Poet's mind. 



Page 147, / 37. These verses were inscribed 
by Burns on the back of a window-shutter of an 
inn or toll-house near the scene of the devasta- 
tions. 

Page 148. Major Logan, a retired military 
officer, fond of wit, violin-playing, and convi- 
viality, who lived at Park, near Ayr. 

Page 149. Gabriel Richardson was a brewer 
in Dumfries. The epitaph was written on a 
goblet, which is still preserved in the family. 

Page 150, I $. Written in reply to the minis- 
ter of Gladsmuir, who had attacked Burns in 
verse relative to the imprudent lines inscribed 
on a window-pane in Stirling. 

Page 150. Written from Ellisland to hiSfriend 
Mr, Hugh Parker of Kilmarnock. 

Page 150. These verses were originally 
headed, 'To the Right Honourable the Earl of 
Breadalbane, President of the Right Honourable 
and Honourable the Highland Society, which 
met on the 23d of May last, at the Shakspeare, 
Covent Garden, to concert ways and means to 
frustrate the designs of five hundred High- 
landers, who, as the Society were informed by 
Mr., Mackenzie of Applecross, were so audacious 
as to attempt an escape t'rom their lawful lords 
and masters, whose property they were, by 
emigrating from the lands of Mr. M'Donald of 
Glengarry to the wilds of Canada in search of 
that fantastic thing — Liberty.' 

Page rsi, 1 2$. These ver.ses form the con- 
clusion of a letter written to Mr. John Kennedy 
from Mossgiel, of date 3d March, 1786. 

Page 152. Lord President Dundas died on 
the 13th December, 1787, and Burns composed 
the elegy'at the suggestion of Mr. Charles Hay, 
advocate, afterwards elevated to the bench under 
the designation of Lord Newton. On a copy of 
ths elegy Bums afterwards wrote: "The fore- 
going poem has some tolerable lines in it, but the 
incurable wound of my pride will not suffer me to 
correct, or even to peru.se it. I sent a copy of 
it, with my best prose letter, to the son of the 
great man, by the hands of one of the noblest 
men in God's world, Alexander Wood, .surgeon. 
When, behold ! his solicitorship took no more 
notice of my poem or me than if I had been a 
strolling fiddler, who had made free with his 
lady's name over a silly new reel. Did the 
gentleman imagine that I looked for any dirty 
gratuity ? ' 

Page 153, / 5. Written at Castle Kenmure 
at the request of Mr. Gordon, whose dog had 
recently died. 

Page 153, /q. These lines were preserved by 
Miss Louisa Laurie, and appear to have been 
written on the same evening with the well-known 
' Verses left in the room where he slept.' 

Page 15s, Iq. ' The Grace' was repeated at 
St. Mary's Isle at the request of the Earl of 
Selkirk. • 



NOTES. 



297 



Page 155, / 13. The mare, which was named 
after the insane female who attempted the life 
of George III., was the property of Burns' friend. 
Mr. WiUiani Nicol. 

Page 15s, / 29. 'These lines were written on 
a page of the Statistical Account of Scotland, 
voK xiii., containing a description of the 
parish of Balmaghie. The minister, after 
quoting one of the simple, rude martyrs' epi- 
taphs, adds—' The author of which no doubt 
supposed himself to have been writing poetry.-' 
This captious remark called forth Burns's lines. 
The book, with the poet's comment, is pre- 
served in the Mechanics' Institute, Dumfries. 
It is curious as the only expression of sympathy 
with the Covenanting cause which occurs in 
Bimis. 

Page 156. While Miss Lewars was attending 
Burns she became slightly indisposed. 'You 
must not die yet,' said the poet; and writing 
the four lines on a goblet he presented it, say- 
ing, 'This will beacompanion for the "Toast."' 

Page 156, / 9. On Miss Lewars recovering 
he said, ' There is a poetic reason for it,' and 
wrote these lines. 

Page 156, ^ 13. * The Toast ' was written by 
Burns on a goblet, and presented to Miss 
Lewars. 

Page t'57, / 13. Mr. Chalmers was a writer 
m Ayr, and in love. He desired Burns to 
address the lady in his behalf. 

Page 158.. Burns arrived at Wanlockhead on 
a wmter day, and was anxious to have the shoes 
of his mam/rosted. The smith was busy, and 
could not attend. Burns then scribbled these 
verses to Mr. John Taylor, a person of some 
importance in the place. Through Taylor's 
influence the smith's services were secured ; 
and for thirty years afterwards it is said Vulcan 
was in the habit' of boasting 'that he had never 
been weel paid but ance, and that was by a 
poet, who paid him in money, paid him in drink, 
and paid him in verse.' 

Page 158, / 9. The note on which Burns 
wrote these lines is .of the Bank of Scotland, 
dated ist March, 'ijSo, 

Page 158, / 19. The Loyal Natives was a 
club in Dumfries, 'more distinguished,' says 
Cromek, 'for drunken loyalty than for respect- 
ability and poetic talent.' 

Page 138, I "2.6. These lines — with one ex- 
ception, the only attempt of Bums in blank 
verse — occur in his common-place book, April 
178^. It will be seen that the poet had not 
attained any considerable mastery over the most 
difficult of poetic measures. 

Page 159, / 17. This epigram, it is said, 
silenced a gentleman who was talking mightily 
of dukesat the table of Maxwell of Terraughty. 

Page 159, / 25. These lines occur in one of 
the letters to Clarinda. 

Page 159, / 37. These verses were first 
printed by Cromek. 

Page 160, I 5. These lines occur in one of 
the letters to Clarinda. 



Page 160. Mr. Cobbett, who first printed 
these lines, says : * It is our fortune to know a 
Mr. Kennedy, an aged gentleman, a native of 
Scotland, and the early friend and associate of 
Robert Burns. Both were born in Ayrshire, 
near the town of Ayr, so frequently celebrated 
in the poems of the bard. Burns, as is well 
known, was a poor peasant's son ; and in the 
*' Cotter's Saturday Night " gives a noble 
picture of what we may presume to be the 
family circle of his father. Kennedy, whose 
boyhood was passed in the labours of a farm, 
subsequently became the agent to a mercantile 
house in a neighbouring town. Hence he is 
called, in an epitaph which his friend the Poet 
wrote on him, "The Chapman." These lines, 
omitted in all editions of Burns' works, were 
composed on Kennedy's recovery from a severe 
illness. On his way to kirk on a bright Sabbath 
morning, he was met by the Poet, who, having 
rallied him on the sombre expression of his 
countenance, fell back, and soon rejoined him, 
presenting him with the epitaph scrawled on a. 
bit of paper with a pencil.' 

Page i6i, / 13. In some MS. copies these 
Stanzas conclude * The Epistle to John Lapraik, 
an Old Scottish Bard.' 

Page 162, / 2^. These verses, inscribed to 
Gavin Hamilton, were printed for the first time 
in Pickering's edition. 

Page 163, / 17. These h'nes occur in a letter 
addressed by Burns to Mr. Robert Ainslie. 

Page 163. Burns in early life sketched the 
outHnes of a tragedy, and the ' Tragic Fragment' 
was ' an exclamation from a great character — 
great in occasional instances of generosity, and 
daring at times, in villanies. He is supposed to 
meet a child of misery and exclaims to himself.* 

Page 164. The following fragments are ex- 
tracted from Burns* commonplace book, but the 
authorship is doubtful. 

Page 165, / 27. The Tailor's epistle is as 
follows. Burns' reply was first published at 
Glasgow in 1801. 

EPISTLE FROM A TAILOR TO ROBERT 
BURNS. 

What waofu' news is this I hear, 
Piae greeting I can scarce Corbcar, 
Folli tell ine, yc'er gawn aff this year 

Out o'er the sea. 
Aur lasses Avham yc lo'e sac dear 

Will greet forthee. 

Weel wad I like war ye to stay. 
But, Robin, since ye will away, 
I ha'e a word yet mair to say, 

And maybe twa;- 
May He protect us night and day 

That made us a*. 

Whar thou art gaun, keep mind frae rae- 
Seek Him to bear thee companie. 
And, Robin, whan yo rome to die, 

Ye'll won aboon, 
An' live at peace an' unity 

Ayont tne mooii. 



298 



NOTES. 



Some tell me, Rab, ye dinna fear 
To get a wean, an' curse an' sweaty 
I'm unco wae, my lad, to hear 

O' sic a trade. 
Cou'd I persuade ye to forbear 

I wad be glad. 
Pu' weel ye keii ye'll gang to hell, 
«iin yc persist in doin' ill — 
■\Vaes n)e ! ye're hurlin' down the hill 

Withouten dread, 
An' ye'll get leave to swear your flU 

After ye le dead. 
There, walth o' women ye'll get near, 
But gettin' wearvs 3-6 will forbear. 
Ye'll never say, my bonie dear, 

Conie, gie'3 a kiss — 
Nae kissing then— ye'll grin an' sneer, 

An' ithcr hiss. 
Rab! lay by thy foolish tricks, 
An' steer nae mair the female sex. 
Or some day ye'll come through the prictis, 

An' that yell see ; 
Ye'll fln' hard living wi' Auid Nicks : 

I'm wae for thee. 
But what's this comes wi' sic a knell, 
Amaist as loud as ony bell. 
While it does mak' my conscience tell 

Me what is triie, 
I'm but a ragget cowt mysel', 

Owre .sib to you ! 
We're owr^ like those wha think it flt. 
To stuff their mddles fu' o' wit, 
An' vet content in darkness sit, 

\Vha shunrtlie light. 
To let them see down to the pit, 

That long dark night. 
But farewell, Rab, I maun awa', 
May He that made us keep us a', 
For that wad be a dreadfu' fa'. 

And hurt us sair : 
Lad, ye wad never mend ava' ; 

Sae, Rab, tak' care. 

Pa£;e 167. This epitaph, and the following 
epigramb', appeared in the Kilmarnock, but 
were omitted in the first Edinburgh and sub- 
sequent editions. 

Page 168, / I. These lines first appeared In 
the edition published at Glasgow in 1801. 

Page 168, I 9. These lines first appeared in 
the edition published at Gla.sgow in i8oi. 

Page i6Z, I iZ- On Burns' arrival at InveFa»y 
the castle and inn were filled with visitors to the 
Duke, and the innkeeper was too busy to pay 
attention to the Poet and his friend. The epi- 
gram, which was first published in the Glasgow 
edition, is supposed to have been written on 
one of the windows. 

Page 169. John Stewart, eighth Earl of Gal- 
loway, who died in 1796. Burns disliked this 
nobleman, and his dislike descended in a 
shower of brilliant- epigrams. 

Page 170, / 33. Printed in Cromek's Reliques. 

Page 17 r, I i. Printed in the Glasgow Col- 
lection, 1801. 

Page 171, / 23. Printed in Cromek's Reliques. 

Page \T2, I $. Printed in the Gla.sgow Col- 
lection, 1801. 

Page 172. Captain Grose was extremely 
corpulent. This epigram was printed in the 
Scots Magazine, June 1791, 



Page 172. Printed in the Glasgow Collection, 
1801. In a letter to Clarinda, in 1787, Burns 
refers to this epigram. ' Did I ever repeat to 
you an epigram I made on a Mr. Elphinstone, 
who has given a translation of Martial, a famous 
Latin poet?_ The poetry of Elphinstone can 
only equal his prose-notes. I was sitting in a 
merchant's shop of my acquaintance, waiting for 
somebody : he put Elphinstone into my hand, 
and asked my opinion of it ; I begged leave to 
write it on a blank leaf, which I did.' 

Page 173. This epitaph was printed in the 
Kilmarnock edition. ' Jamie ' was James Hum- 
phrey, a mason in Mauchline, who was wont to 
hold theological disputations with the Poet. 

Page 173. ' Wee Johnny' was John Wilson, 
the printer of the Kilmarnock edition, in which 
edition Biims wickedly inserted the epitaph. 
Wilson printed, unconscious that he had any 
other interest in the matter than a commercial 
one. 

Pag;e 173, le,. This, and the two following epi- 
taphs, were printed hi the Kilmarnock edition. 

Page 173. In the Kilmarnock, Edinburgh, 
and several subsequent editions, the first line 
of the ' Bard's Epitaph ' is printed :—■ 
Is there a whim-inspir'd fool. 

Page 174, / 19. Printed in the Kilmarnock 
edition. In a copy in the Poet's handwriting 
the first line reads :— 

O ye who sympathise with virtue's pains. 

Page 174, I 26. Goldsmith. R. B. 

Page 174, / 27. Printed in the Glasgow 
edition, 1801. 

Page 174, /41. Burns' friend, James Smith, 
of Mauchline. This epitaph was printed in 
the Glasgow Collection. 

Page 176. These lines were inscribed on 
a pane of glass in Mr. M'Murdo's house. 

Page 177, / 2. The Right Worshipful Master, 
Major-Gcneral James RIontgomery. On the 
24th of June (St. John's Day) the masonic 
club in Mauchline, of which Burns was a 
member, contemplated a procession. Burns 
sent the rhymed note to Dr. Mackenzie, with 
whom he had lately been discussing the origin 
of morals. 

Page 177, C 16. This tumbler came into the 
possession of Sii Walter Scott, and is still pre- 
served at Abbotsford. 'Willie Stewart' was 
factor on the estate of Closeburn in Dumfries 
shire. He died in 1812, aged 63. 

Page 178. This song was composed in 
honour of Miss Wilhclmina Alexander, sister 
of the Laird of Ballochmyle, whom Burns h.id 
met in one of his evening walks. 

Page 178, / 15. Var. 

The lily hue and rose's dye 
Bespoke the lass o' Ballochmyle. 

Page 178, / 3, 2 col. Var. 

And all ber other charms arc foil'd. 



NOTES. 



299 



■Page 1 78, / 5, 2 col. Var. 

O if she were a country -maid. 

Page 178. Burns wrote to Mrs. Dunlop, 
December, 1791 ;— 

* I have just finished the following song, 
which, to a lady the descendant of Wallace, 
and many heroes of his truly illustrious line, 
and herself the mother of several soldiers, needs 
neither preface nor apology. The circumstance 
that gave rise to the following verses was, look- 
ing over with a musical friend M 'Donald's col- 
lection of Highland airs, I was struck with 
one, an Isle of Skye tune, entitled Oran an 
Aoig, or T^ Song of Death, to the measure of 
which I have adapted my stanzas.* 

Page 178, /42. Var. 

Now gay with the bright setting sun. 
Page 179, /13. Var. 

Down by the burn, where birken buds. 
Page 179, /21. Var. 

Altlio' the night were ne'er sae wet. 
Page 179, / 33. The two first lines of this 
song are- taken- from an old Scotch ballad, 
printed in Johnson's ' Museum.' Mr. Cham- 
bers states that the second stanza was designed 
as a description of Charlotte Hamilton. 

Page 180, / I. This song was written when 
Burns brought his wife home to Ellisland. The 
second line was originally — 

I'll share wi' naebody. 
Page iBo, I 19. In Burns* MS. this line 
stood-— ^ 

She is a winsome wee thing. 

It was altered, as in the text, by Mr. Thomson. 
Page 180. Duncan Gray was suggesteJ 
by a somewhat licentious ditty published in 
Johnson's 'Museum ;' the first and part of the 
third line being retained. With reference to 
this song Burns wrote to Mr. Thomson, De- 
cember, 1792: — 'The foregoing I submit to 
your better judgment: acquit them or condemn 
them as seemeth good in your s'ght, Duncan 
Gray is that kind of horse-gallop of an air", 
which precludes sentiment. The ludicrous is 
its ruling feature.' 

Page i8r, / 13. Vjir. 

How bleflt the wild-wood Indiaa'a fate.— ;^TS. 

Page 181,2 col. About this song Bums wrote 
to Mr, Thomson, January, 1793: — 

' The very name of Peter Pindar is an acqui- 
sition to your work. His " Gregory " is beau- 
tiful. I have tried to give you a set of stanzas 
in Scots on the same subject, which are at your 
service. Not that I intend to enter the lists 
with Peter ; that would be presumption indeed. 
My song, though much inferior in poetic merit, 
has, I think, more of the ballad simplicity in it.' 

Dr. Wolcot's song (Peter Pindar) riiay be 
inserted here for purposes of comparison. 

• Ah ope. Lord Orepory, thy door! 
A midnight watulerpr sighs ; 
Hard rush the r.iiriR, the tempests roar. 
And lijrhtiiiiigH cleave the skies. 



■Who comes with woe at this drear night,— 

A pilgrim of the gloom ? 
If she whose love did once delight. 

My cot shall yield her room. 
Al.as ! thou heard'st a pilgrim mourn. 

That once was prized by thee : 
Think of the ring by yonder burn 

Thou gav'st to love and me. 
■ But shoutd'st thou not poor Marion know, 

I'll turn my feet and part ; 
And think the storms that round mo-blow 

Far kinder than thy heart.' 

Page 182, / 13. A song under this title ap- 
peared in Johnson's 'Museum' in 1788, which 
is said to have been written by Burns. ' It is 
so rude and wretched a production,' says Mr. 
Chambers, 'that we cannot believe many 
words,,of it to have been supplied by so mcis- 
terly a pen.' 

Page 182. The heroine of this song was 
Miss Jessie Staig. 

Page 183, / 16. Var. 

As simmer to nature, so Willie to rae. Einkine. 

Page 183, / 19. Var. 

JJlow soft, ye breezes ; blow gently, j-e billows. 

Erskme. 
Page 183, /22, Var. 

Flow still between us, thou dark-lieaving main. 

£fskmt. 
Page 183, /24. Var. 

While dying,.! think that my Willie's ray ain. 

Ersktne. 

Page 183, / 31. This and the following line 
were taken from a song, to the same air, written 
by John Mayne, afterwards author of the Siller 
Gun, and published in the Star newspaper in 
1789. 

Page 183, / 13, 2 col Var. 

Ve mind n.a, 'mid yoiir cruel joys. 
The widow's tears, the orphan's cries. 

Page 184. In July, 1793, Burns wrote Mr. 
Thomson:— 'I have just finished the follow- 
ing ballad, and, as I do think it in my best 
style, I' send it to you- Mr. Clarke, who wrote 
down the air from Mrs. Burns' wood-note wild, 
is very fond of it, and has given it a celebrity by 
teaching it to some young ladies of the first 
fashion here. . . . The heroine of the foregoing 
is a Miss M'Murdo, daughter to Mr. M'Murdo 
of Drumianrig, one of your subscribers. I have 
not painted her in the rank which she holds 
in life, but in the dress and character of a 
cottager.' 

Page i%i\s 1 21. In the original MS. Durns 
asks Mr. Thomson if this stanza is not original. 

Page 184, / 1, 2 col. Var. 

Thy handsome foot thou .sh.alt not isot 

In barn or byre to trouble thee. MS. copi/. 

Page 184, Ig, 2 col. In August, 1793, Bunii? 
wrote Mr. Thomson:— 'I have tried my hand 
oti Robin Adair, and you will probably think 
with little success ; but it is such a ctirsed, 
cn-imp, out-of-the-way measure, Uiac I despair 



300 



NOTES. 



of doing anything better to it. So much for 
namby-pamby. 1 may, after all, try my hand 
on it in Scots verse. There I always find my- 
self most at home.' Phillis the Fair is said to 
have been Miss M'JSturdo, — sister of the heroine 
of There ivas a Lass,—^\\A with whom the 
musician Clarke (who gave lessons to the young 
iadi-is) was in love. /'A/'/Z/j afterwards became 
Mrs. Norman Lockhart of Carnwath. 

■ Page 184, / 34, 2 col. A mountain west of 
Strathallan, 3009 feet high. R. B. 

Page 185, / 17. Burns wrote Mr. Thomson 
in August, 1793 : — 'That crinkum-crankum tune, 
Kobin Adair, has run so in my head, and I 
succeeded so ill in my last attempt, that I have 
ventured, in this morning's walk, one essay 
more. You, my dear Sir, will remember an un- 
fortunate part of our worthy friend Cunning- 
ham's story, which happened about three years 
ago. That struck my fancy, and I endeavoured 
to do the idea justice, as follows.' A lady with 
whom Cunningham was in love had jilted him 
on the appearance of a richer lover. 

Page rS^. In August, 1793, Burns wrote Mr. 
Thomson : — 'Is IVhistle, and Til come to yon, 
vty lad,, one of your airs ? I admire it much ; 
and yesterday 1 set the following verses to it.' 
In some of the MSS. the first lour lines- run 
thus : — 

O whistle, and I'll come to tlieo, itiyjo 
O whistle, and I'll conic to thee, my jo; 
5'ho' father and mother and a' should say no, 
O whistle, and I'll come to thee, my jo. 

In 1795 Burns wrote to Johnson : — ' In Whistle, 
and I'll come to ye, my lad, the iteration of that 
line is tiresome to my ear. Here goes what I 
think is an improvement : — 

a whistlCj and I'll come to yc, my lad j 
O- whistle, and I'll conic to ye, my lad ; 
Tho' father .and mother and a' should gac mad. 
Thy Jeanie will venture wi' yp, my lad.' 

Page 186, / 33. In September, 1793, Burns 
wrote to Mr. Thomson : — ' I have been turning 
o\cr some volumes of songs, to find verses 
whose measures would suit the airs for which 
you have allotted me to find English songs. 
For Atuirlaiid IViilie you have in Ramsay's 
Tea-table an excellent song, beginning. Ah, 
why those tears in Willie's eyes ? As for The 
Colliers Dochter, take the following old bac- 
chanal.' 

Page 186, / 13, 2 col. In a letter to Ciarinda 
(supposed to be written about February, 1790,) 
Burns writes :—' The following song is one cf 
my latest productions, and I send it to you, as 
I should do anything else, because it pleases 
myself It h.^s been conjectured that Mrs. 
M'Lchose was the heroine. 

Page 186. In March, 1792, Burns wrote to 
Mr. Cunningham: — ^ Apropos,, Ao you know 
the much-admired old Highland air called The 
Sutor's Dochter^ It is a first-rate favourite of 
mine, and I have written what I reckon one of 
my best son^s to it. I will send it to you as it 
was sung with great applause in some fashion- 



able circles by Major Lobertson, of Lude, who 
was here with his corps.' Allan Cunningham 
states that Wilt thou be my Dearie ? was said 
* to have been composed in honour of Janet 
Miller of Dalswinton, mother of the present 
Earl of Mar, one of the most beautiful women 
of her time.' 

Page 187. In May, 1794, Burns wrote to 
Mr. Thomson : — ' Now, for six or seven months, 
I shall be quite in song, as you shall see by 
and by. 1 know you value a composition 
because it is made by one of the great ones as 
little as I do. However, I got an air, pretty 
enough, composed by Lady Elizabeth Heron, 
of Heron^ which she calls The Banks of Cree. 
Cree is a beautiful romantic stream ; and as her 
ladyship is a particular friend of mine, I have 
written the following song to it.' 

Page 187, / 26. Burns wrote Mr. Thomson 
in 1794 : — ' 'I'he last evening, as I was straying 
out, and thinking of O'er the Hills ami far 
aivay, I spun the following stanzas for it ; but 
whether my spinning will deserve to be laid up 
in store, like the precious thread of the silk- 
worm, or brushed to the devil, like the vile 
manufacture of the spider, I leave, my dear 
Sir, to your usual candid criticism. I was 
pleased with several fines in it at first, but I 
own that now it appears rather a flimsy busi- 
ness.' 

Page 187. In September, 1794, Burns wrote 
Mr. I'homson: ' I am flattered at your'adopting 
Ca' the Votves to the K7to7t<es, as it was owing 
to me that, ever it saw the light. About seven 
years ago I was acquainted with a worthy 
little fellow of a clergyman, a Mr. Clunie, who 
sang it charmingly ; and, at my request, Mr. 
, Clarke took it down from his singing. When I 
gave it to Johnson, I added some stanzas to the 
song, and mended others, but still it will not do 
for you. In a solitary stroll which I took to- 
day I tried my hand on a few pastoral lines, 
following up the idea of the chorus, which I 
would preserve. Here it is, with all its crudi- 
ties and imperfections on its head.' The copy 
published in Johnson's ' Museum' is much 
inferior to the text. 

Page 188, / 21. In September, i794i Burns 
wrote to Mr. Thomson : — ' Do you know a 
blackguard Irish song, called O/iag.Vs Water- 
fall? The air is charming, and I have often 
regretted the want of decent verses on it. It 
is too much, at least for my humble rustic muse, 
to expect that every effort of hers shall have 
merit ; still I think that it is better to -have 
mediocre verses to a favourite air than none at 
all.' 

Page 188, / 13. 2 col. ,In sending this song to 
Mr.Thomson, 19th October, 1794, Burns writes: — 
' I met with .some such words in a collection of 
songs somewhere, which I altered and enlarged : 
and to please you, and to suit your favourite 
air, I have taken a stride or two across my 
room, and have arranged it anew, as you will 
find on the other page.' 



mvBs. 



301 



^Pagc 188, /31, 2 col. The heroine of this song^ 
was Miss Lorimer, of Craigiebum. Dr. Currie 
prints the following variation : — 

Now to tho streaming' fountain, 

Or up llie heathy niouiitaiii, 
The hart, liind. and roe, freely, wildly- wanton, Stray; 

1 11 twining hazel bowers 

His lay the linnet ponrs; 

The lav'rock to the sky 

Ascends wi' sangs o" joy ; 
\Vhile the sun and thou arise to bless the day. 

When frae my Chloris parted. 

Sad, cheerless, broUen-hoarted, 
The night's gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast my 
sky. 

Ihit when she charms my sight 

In pride of beauty's light, 

^VheIl through my very heart 

Her beaming glories dart, 
"J'is then, 'tis tlien, I wake to life and joy. 

Page 189, / 19. In sending this song to Mr. 
Thomson, November, ^794, Burns says ; — * This 
piece has at least the merit of being a regular 
pastoral : the vernal morn, the siimmer noon, 
the autumnal evening, and the winter night, 
are regularly routided. * 

Page 189, / I, 2 col. Vdr. 

And should the howling wintry blast 
Disturb my lassie's midnight rest. 
I'll fauld thee to my faithtu' breast 
And comfort thee, my dearie O. 

Page 189,^9,2 col. With reference to this song 
Burns wrote Mr. Thomson, 19th October, 1794 : 
— ' I enclose you a musical curiosity, an East 
Indian air, which you would swear was a. Scot- 
tish one. I know the authenticity of it, as the 
gentleman who brought it over is a particular 
acquaintance of mine. . . . Here follow the 
verses I intend for it.' 

Page 189, / 25, 2 col. Burns sent the first draf«; 
of this song to Mr. Thomson in April, 1793. It 
was then addressed to 'Maria (supposed to be 
j\lrs. Riddel). When he sent the version in the 
text to Mr. Thomson in November, 1794, he 
had made some inconsiderable alterations, and 
substituted Eliza for Maria. 

Page 190, 1 13. Burns wrote to Mr. Thom- 
son, November, 1794:— 'Scottish bacchanalians 
we certainly want, though the few we have are 

e.vcellent Apropos to bacchanalian songs 

in Scottisii, 1 composed one yesterday for an 
air I like much, l.imtps o Pudding.' Burns 
tells Mr. Thomson in a passage suppressed by 
Currie, that he intended this song as a picture 
of his own mind. 

Page 190, / 29. Clarinda was the heroine oT 
this song. 
Var. 

Now in her green mantio gay Naturo arrays. 
Page 190, /3i. Vnr. 

And bird.-) wiirljlo welvoincs In Ilka green uhaw. 
l^ige 190, / 33. /;,;-. 

The prlnuoce and daisy our glens may adorn. 
Page ir)o,' 1 2S- Var. 

Tlioy torture my bosom, sac sweetly they blaw. 
Page 190, / 36. Var. 

Tluy mind me o' Bonnie— ind y«nnle'8 ftwa. 



Page igo, I ^i. Var. 
Come autumn sac pensive, in yellow array. 

Page 191, / 1. The heroine of this song was' 
Miss Lorimer, of Craigieburn. 

Page 191, /. 17. In February, 1795, Burns 
wrote to Mr. Thomson : — ' Here is another trial 
at your favourite air. ... 1 do not know 
whether it will do.* 

Page igi, ^58. In May, 1795* Biirns wrote 
to Mr. Thomson :-r-' The Irish air, Hinno2irs. 
of Glen, is a great favourite of mine, and as, 
except the silly stuff in the Poor Soldier, 
there are not any decent verses for it, I have 
written for it as follows.* 

Page 191, /62. Var. 

Far dearer to me are these humble broom bowers. 

Page 191, / 6^. Var. 

Where blue-bells and gowans lurk lowly unseen. 

Page 192, /q. Miss Lorimer of Craigieburn 
was the heroine of this song. 

Page 192, / 17. Var. 

Jcanie, I'm thine wi' a passion slncercst. 

Page 192, / I, 2 col. This song is altered 
from an old English, one. 

Page 193, / 25. The chorus of this song was 
originally written — 

O this is no my ain body, 
Kind though the body be, &c. 

Page ig2, l^'f,'^ col. With reference to this 
song Burns asked Mr. Thomson: — 'How do 
you like the foregoing ? I have written it within 
this hour. So much for the speed of my 
Pegasus : but what say you to his bottom .? ' 

Page 194, /33. In the original copy this line 
stood — 

He up the Gateslack to my black cousin Bess. 

And on 3d June, 1795, Mr. Thomson wrote, 
objecting to the introductionof the word Gates- 
lack, and also to that of Dalgarnock in the 
verse which 'followed. On August 3d of the 
same year Bums replied : — ' Gateslack, the 
word you object to, is the name of a particular 
place, a kind of passage up among the Lowthcr 
Hills, on the confines of this county. Dalgar- 
nock is also the name of a romantic spot near 
the Nith, where arc still a ruined church and a 
burial-ground. However, let the first run " He 
up the lang loan," &c.' 

Page 195, /27. About. RLiy 17, 1796, Burns 
wrote to Mr. Thomson :— ' 1 once mentioned to 
you an air which I have long admired, Here's 
a health to them that's awa, hiney, but I for- 
get if you took any notice of it. I have just 
been trying to suit it with verses, and I beg 
leave to recommend the air to your attention 
once more. I have only begun it.' Jessie, the 
heroine of the song, was Miss Jessie Lcwars, 
who acted as nurse during the Poet's illness^ 



J02 



NOTES. 



Page 196, / 16. Burns composed this song 
while standing under the falls of Aberfeldy, near 
ISIoness, in Perthshire, September, 1787. 

Pag^e 197, / II. This was the last song com- 
posed by Burns. It was written at Brow, on 
the Sohvay Frith, a few days before his death. 
Page ii^j. William, fourth viscount of Strath- 
allan, fell at the battle of Culloden, while serving 
on the side of the rebels. In original edition 
in Johnson's Museum the first stanza runs as 
follows : — 

Thickest night, surround my dwelling! 

Howling tempests, o'er me rave I 
Tarbid torrents, wintry swelling, 
Roaring by my lonely cave. 

Page 197, / 37. Var. 

F.^rowell tlocting, fickle treasure, 

Between Mistortuno and Folly shar'dl 
F.arewell peace, and farewell pleasure! 

Farewell flattering man's regard! 
Ruin's wheel has driven o'er me. 

Nor dare a hope my fate attend ; 
The wide world is all" before me, 

But a world without a friend ! 

Page 197, / 9, 2 col. ' I composed these 
verses on JMiss Isabella M'Leod of Raasay, 
alluding to her feelings on the death of her sis- 
ter, and the still more melancholy death of her 
sister's husband, the late Earl of Loudon, who 
shot himself out of sheer heart-break, at some 
mortifications he suffered, owing to the deranged 
state of his finances.' — B. 

Page:i(jTylzs,2col. *I composed these 
verses out of compliment to a Mrs. Maclachlan, 
whose husband is an officer in the East Indies.' 
— B. 

Page 198, / I. The heroine of this song was 
Miss Euphemia Murray, of Lintrose, who wa^ 
an inmate of Ochtertyre House, when Burns 
was there on a visit. 

Page 198, / 6, 2 coL The heroine of this song 
was Rliss Alargeret Chalmers. 

Page igg, / i. This song was written in 
celebration of Miss Jenny Cruikshank, daughter 
of Mr. Cruikshank, of the High School, Edin- 
burgh. 

Page 199. This song was composed by Bums 
when he was about seventeen years of age. 
The subject was a girl in his neighbourhood 
named Isabella Steven, or Stein. According to 
Allan Cunningham, ' Tibbie was the daughter 
of a pensioner of Kyle— a man wijth three acres 
of peat moss — an inheritance which she thought 
entitled her to treat a landless wooer with 
disdain.' 

Page 199, / 26, 2 col. 'This song,' Burns 
writes in a note, ' I comjfjosed but of compli- 
ment to Mrs. Burns. N.B.— It was in the- 
honeymoon.' 

Pag? 200, / r. This song was also, composed 
out of compliment to Mrs. Burns: Corsincon 
is a hill at the he.ad of Nithsdale, beyond which 
Mrs. Burns lived before thft Poet brought her 
home to Ellisland. 



Page 200, / 25. With regard to this song 
Burns writes : — ' I composed it out of compli- 
ment to one of the happiest and worthiest mar- 
ried couples in the world, Robert Riddel, of 
Glenriddel, and his lady." 

Page 200, I 1, 2 col. 'Composed on the 
amiable and excellent family of Whitefoord 
leaving Ballochmyle, when Sir John's misfor- 
tunes obliged him to sell the estate.' — B. 

Page 200, / 17, 2 col. Burns writes concern- 
ing this song :— =-' The air is Masterton's, the 
song mine. The occasion of it was this : Mr. 
William Nidol, of the High School of Edin- 
burgh, during the autumn vacation, being at 
Moffat, honest Allan, who was at that time on 
a visit to Dalswinton, and I, went to pay Nicol 
a visit. We had such a joyous meeting, that 
Mr. Masterton and I agreed, each in our own 
way, that we should celebrate the "business.' 

Pageioo, I 37, 2 col. In nrifiny editions this 
line is printed, ' Wha last b^pside his chair shall 
fa'.* In Johnson's'', Museum* it is given as in 
the text. It seetns more in accordance with the 
splendid bacchanalian frenzy that :/i^ should be 
king who 

Rushed into the field and foremost fighting fell. 

Victory does not lie in stamina or endurance. 
For the moment intoxication is the primal good, 
and he is happiest who is first intoxicated. 

Page ■201, I r. At Lochmaben Burns spent 
an evening at the manse with the Rev. Andrew 
Jeffrey. His daughter Jean, a blue-eyed blonde 
of seventeen, presided at the tea-table. .Next 
morning at breakfast 'the poet presented the 
young lady with .the song. 

Page 201, / 33. "This song appears In the 
' Museum ' Avith Bums' name. attached. Mrs. 
Begg maintained that it was an-old song which 
her brother brushed up and retouched. 

Page 202, /20. ■'Ctarming lovely Da vies' 
is the heroine of this song. ,. 

Page 203, / 17, 2 col. Vnr. 

O weels me on my sptnnin wheel 

Page 203, / 18, 2 col. Var. 

O weels mb on my rock and reel 

Pagezo2, /24, 2 coL V(tr. 

weols me on my splnnln wheel 

Page 203» i 29, 2 coL Var, 

Alike to shield tire birdie's nest 

Page 203, / 34, ? col. Var. 

And echoes coii the dootfu* tale^ 

Page 204, 1 4- Var, 

Rejoice me at my sptnnin wbcA 

Page 204, / 7. Vnr. 

O wha would cliangethe humble (tote. 

Page 204, l() and 10. Var. 
Amang their flarin. Idle toy«, 
Araang their cumbrous, dinsome Joyt. 



MTES. 



303 



Page 204, I It, 2 col. In the original MS. 
the name of the heroine of this song was Rabina. 

Page 205. It will be noticed that this song 
IS not distinguished by botanical correctness. 
Into the Fosi'e Burns has gathered the flowers 
of spring, summer, and autumn. 

Page 206, / I. This song appeared with 
Eurns' name attached in Johnson's ' Museum.' 
'I'he simple and finer version which follows wgs 
sent to Mr, Ballantine in 1787. ' While here I 
sit, ' Burns writes, ' sad and solitary, by the side 
of a fire in a little country inn, and drying my 
wet clothes.' 

Page 206, / 45. yThis song was addressed to 
Clarinda. 

Page 2o6,' / 4 7. yar. 
Dire was the parting thou btdst me remember. 

Page 207, 1 1. Burns wrote to Mr. Thomson, 
September, 1793 : — ' The following song I have 
composed for Oraji Gaoil, the Highland air 
that you tell me in your last you have resolved 
to give a place to in your book. I have this 
moment finished the song ; so you have it glow- 
ingfrom the mint. If it suits you, well ! if not, 
'tis also well ! ' 

Page 207, / 47. According to Dr. Currie this 
song was composed in honour of Mrs. Stewart 
of Stair. Gilbert Burns thought the verses" 
referred to Highland Mary. Afton is an Ayr- 
shire stream, and flows into the Nith, near New 
Cumnock. 

Page 208, / 13, 2 col. Clarinda is supposed 
to be the subject of this song. 

Page 208, / 28, 2 col. The first four lines of 
this song are old. 

Page 2og, I g. The foundation of this song 
was a short ditty, written, it is said, by one 
Lieutenant Hinches, as a farewell to his sweet- 
heart. 

Page 2og, 1 25. This song was composed in 
honour of JMrs. Oswald, of Aucliincruive. 

Page 209, / 35, 2 col. Var. 

The tod was howling on the Iiill. 

Page 210, / I. Var. 

The burn.aclowii its hazelly path. 

Page 210, It,. Var. 

To join yon river on the stnilh. 

Page 210, /g. Var. 

Now lonUing over flrth and faiild 

Her horn the pale-faced Cytitliia rear'd, 
When, lo, in form of minstrel aidd 

A stern and stalwart ghaist appeared. 

Page 210, / I, 2 col. This song is supposed 
to connect itself with the attachment to High- 
land Mary and the idea of emigration to the 
West Indies. 

Page 2\\, I 11. Written in celebration of 
the personal and mental attractions of JMiss 
Chalmers. 



Page 211, / 29. The chorus of the song is old. 
,Page 211, /8, i. col. Jeau Armour is the 
Jean referred to. 

Page 211, / 9, 2 col. This is one of Burns* 
earliest productions. 

Page 211, 1 2$, 2 Col. ' I composed this song 
out of compliment to Miss Ann Masterton, the 
daughter of my friend Allan Masterton, the 
author of the air, StrathallaiCs Lamejit.' — B. 

Page 212, / I. The first four lines of this song 
are old. 

Page 212, / 12. Var. 

The battle closes deep and bloody. 

Page 212, / 17. The fir ;t stanza of this song 
is taken from a stall ditty, entitled The Strong 
Walls of Derry. 

Page 212, 733. Concerning this song Burns 
writes : — ' This air is claimed by Neil Gow, who 
calls it a lament for his brother. The first half 
stanza of the song is old ; the rest is mine.' 

Page 213, / 1. 'I composed'this song,* Burns 
writes, 'pretty early in life, and sent it to a 
young girl, a very particular acquaintance of 
mine, who was at that time under a cloud.' 

Page 213, / I, 2 col. 'This song,' Bums 
writes, 'is altered from a poem by Sir Robert 
Ayton, private secretary to Mary and Anne, 
Queens of Scotland. ... I think I have im- 
proved • the simplicity of the sentiments by 
giving them a Scots dress.' 

Page 213, / 33. 'This soiig,* .says Burns, 
'alludes to a part of my private history which 
it is of no consequence to the world to know.' 

Page 214, 1 1. Burns says: 'This tune is also 
known Dy the name" of Lass, an' I come near 
thee. The words are mine.' 

Page 214, 1 2$. These verses were inspired 
by Clarinda— the most beautiful and passionate 
strain to which that strange attachment gave 
birth. 

Page 215, / 17. Allan Cunningham states 
that Burns considered this to be the finest 
love-song he had ever composed — an opinion in 
which few readers will concur. 

Page 215, /49. ' These verses,' says Burns, 
' were composed on a charming girl. Miss 
Charlotte Hamilton, who is now married to 
James Mackitlrick Adair, physician. She is 
sister to my worthy friend Gavin Hamilton, 
of Mauchline, and was born on the banks of 
the Ayr.' 

Pag,' 216, /34. This song v/as writfen soon 
after Burns' visit to Gordon Castle in 1787. 
The variations are from a copy in the Poet's 
handwriting. 

Page 216; / 37. Var. 

There innniv'd with fuulc.st stains. 
Page 216, / 33. Var. 

Prom Tyranny 8 empurpled hands. 



304 



NOTES. 



Page 2ID, / 1, 2 col. Var. 

I leave the tyrants and their slaves. 

Page 2 1 6, / 4, 2 col. Var. 

Torrid forests, ever gay. 

Page 217. in September, 1793, Burns wrote 
to Mr. Thomson : — ' Blit/ie /me I been o'er the 
hill is one of the finest songs ever I made in 
my life : and, besides, is composed on a young 
lady, positively the most beautiful, lovely 
woman in the world.' The young lady was 
Miss Lesley Baillie. 

Pa^e ■2i-j,li7. The first and second Stanzas 
of this song are by Burns; the third and 
fourth are old. 

Page 217, / 33. In August, 1793, Bums 
wrote to Mr. Thomson: — 'That tune, Catild 
Kail, is such a favourite of yourSj that I once 
more roved out yesterday for a gloamin-shot 
at the Muses ; when the Muse that presides 
o'er the banks of Nith, or rather my old in- 
spiring dearest nymph, Coila, whispered me the 
following.' 

Page 217, 749. Burns WTote Mr. Thomson 
September, 1793 : — ■* I have finished my song to 
Saw ye my Father ? and in English, as you will 
see. That there is a syllable .too much for the 
expression of the air is true ; but allow me to 
say that the mere dividing of a dotted crotchet 
into a crotchet and a quaver is not a great 
matter: however, in that I have no. pretensions 
to cope in judgment with you. The old verses 
have merit, though unequal, and are popular. 
My advice is ,to set the air to the old words,- 
and let mine follow as English verses. Here 
they are.' 

Page 2tS, /13. On the 19th October, 1794, 
Bums wrote to Mr. Thomson: — 'To descend 
to business ; if you like my idea of When sJie 
cavt beji, she bobbit, the following stanzas of 
mine, altered a little from what they were 
formerly when set to another air, may perhaps 
do instead of worse stanzas.' 

Page 218, / 25. In September, 1793, Bums 
wrote Mr. Thomson: — Fee hint. Father. I 
enclose you Eraser's set of this tune when he 
plays it slow ; in. fact he makes it the language 
of despair. . I shall here give you two stanzas 
in that style, merely to try if it will be any 
improvement. Were it possible in singing to 
give it half the pathos which Eraser gives it in 
playing, it would make an admirably pathetic 
song. I do not give these verses for any merit 
they have. I composed them at the time in 
which " Patie Allan's mither died — that was, 
about the back of midni.ght," and by the lee- 
side., 'of a bowl of punch which had overset every 
mortal in company except the hautbois and the 
Muse.* 

Page 219, / g. In November, 1794, Bum^ 
wrote Mr. Thomson : — ' You may think meanly 
of this, hut take a look at the bombast original, 
and you will be surprised that I have made so 
much of it' 



Page 220, / 21. This is partly composed on 
the plan of an old song known by the same 
name. R. B. The ballad appeared in the first 
Edinburgh edition. 

Page 221, / I. On the 19th November, 1794, 
Burns wrote to Mr. Thomson :— ' Well ! I think 
this, to be done in two or three turns across my 
room, and with two or three pinches of Irish 
blackguard, is not so far amiss.' 

Page 221, / 1, 2 col. This fragment appeared 
In the first Edinburgh edition. 

Page 222, / 33. This song Appeared iii the' 
Kilmarnock edition. 

Page 222, /29, icol. This song appeared in 
the Kilmarnock edition. 

Page 223, / I. The poet proposed, for the 
sake of euphony, to substitute Ltigar for 
Stinchar, but in all his editions, from 1786 to 
1794, 'Stinchar' is printed. 

Page 223, / 33. This song wai? printed in the 
first Edinbur^ edition. 

Page 2-22, 1 21, ^col^ Composed in August. 
This song appeared in the Kilmarnock edition. 

Page 224, / 2$. This song was printed in the 
first Edinburgh edition. 

Page. 22\, I 49. Young's -Night Thoughts. 
R. B. 

Page 225, / I. In the autobiographical 
sketch forwarded to Dr. Moore, Burns writes: 
— ' I had taken the' last farewell of my few 
friends ; my chest was on the road to Greenock ; 
and I had composed the last song I should ever 
measure in Caledonia — 

The gloomy night is gathering fiist; 

when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend.of 
mine overthrew all my schemes, by openin.c; 
new prospects to my poetic ambition,' 'Ihe 
song was printed in the first Edinburgh edition. 

Page 225. The * Farewell ' was printed in 
the Kilmarnock edition. 

Page 225, / 21, 2 col. Mr. Chambers states 
that the grand master referred to In the text 
Has Major-General James Montgomery ; else- 
where the grand master is said to have been 
Sir John Whitefoord. 

Page 225, / 33, 2 col, -Menie is the common 
.abbreviation of Marianne. R. B. This chorus 
is part of a song composed by a gentleman in 
Edinburgh, a particular friend of the author's. 
R. B. This. song appeared in the first Edin- 
burgh edition. 

Page 226, I 29. Concerning this song Burns 
wrote Mr. Thomson on the 14th November. 
1792: — 'The foregoing song pleases myself; I 
thmk it is in my happiest manner : you will see 
at first glance that it suits the air. The subject 
of the son.g is one of the most interestingpassages 
of my youthful days ; ajid I own that I should be 



MOTES. 



3<55 



much, flattered to see the verses set to an air 
which would insure celebrity. Perhaps, .after 
all, 'tis the still glowing prejudice of my heart 
that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits 
I of the composition,' 

Page 226. Burns stated, both to Mr.s. Dunlop 
and Mr. Thomson, that Aiild Lang Syne was 
old. It is; however, generally believed that he 
was the entire, or almost the entire, author. 
In Pickering's edition the following variations 
are taken from a copy in the Poet's handwriting. 

Page 226, / 26, 2 col. Var. 

And never thought upon. 

Page 226, / 27, 2 col. Var. 

Let's hae a waught o' Malaga 
For auld lang"syne. 

Page iiC>y 1 29, 2 col. Var. 

For auld lang syne, my jo. 

Page 226, / 31, 2 col. Var. 

Let's hae a waught o' Malaga. 

Page 227. In September, 1793, Burns sent 
this song to Mr. Thomson. * There is,' he 
wrote, *a tradition, which I have met with 
in'many places of Scotland, that it' (the old air 
Hey tuttie taitie) ' was Robert Bruce's march 
at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought in 
my yesternight's evening walk warmed me to 
a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of Liberty 
and Independence, which I threw into a kind 
of Scottish ode, fitted to the air, that one might 
suppose to be the gallant royal Scot's address 
to his heroic followers on that eventful morning. 
So may God ever defend the cause of truth and 
liberty as He did that day. Amen.' Mr. 
'I'honison wrote suggesting alterations, and 
Burns replied: — '"Who shall decide when 
doctors disagree?" My ode pleases me so much, 
that I cannot alter it. Your proposed altera- 
tions would, in my opinion, make it tame. I 
am exceedingly obliged to you for putting me 
on reconsidering it, as I think I have much 

improved it I have scrutinised it over 

and over ; and to the world, some way or other, 
it shall go as it is.* 

Page 227, / 21, 2 col. In January, 1795, 
Burns wrote Mr. Thomson : — ' A great critic 
(Aikin) on songs says that love and wine are 
the exclusive themes for song-writing. The 
following^ is on neither subject, and conse- 
quently is no song ; but will be allowed* I 
think, to be two or three pretty good prose 
thoughts converted into rhyme.' 

Page itZ, 1-2$. Of this song Burns says : — 
* The title of the song only is old ; the rest is 
mine.' In Johnson's 'Museum' he published 
an early version, with the burden, ' The 
gardener with his paidle.' 

Page lya, /21. Gilbert Burns did not con- 
sider his brother the author of this song. 

Page 231, / 22. This song, which became 
immensely popular at the time, was published 
in the D%im fries Journal^ 5th May, 1795. 



Page 232, I I. This was written in an 
envelope to Mr. Cardonnel, the antiquary,* 
enclosing a letter to Captain Grose. 

Page 232, / 2, 2 col. Var. 

Sweet and harmlos.s as a child. 

Page 232, / 13, 2 col. This was one of Burns- 
earliest compositions. 

Page 233, / 1. This song appears in Johnson's 
'Museum' without Burns' name. 

Page 233. M'Pherson was a Highland free- 
booter, of great personal strength and musical 
taste and accomplishment. While lying in 
prison under sentence of death, he composed 
his Farewell, words and air, the former of 
which began : — 

• I've spent my time in rioliiig, 

Debauch'd my health and strength ; 
I squander'd Ca.st as pillafro came, 
And fell to .shame at length. 
But dantonly and wantonly 
And rantonly I'll gae ; 
I'll play a tune and dance it roun' 
lieneath the gallows' tree.' 

When brought to tliC' gallows* foot at Banff, 
he played his Farewell, and then broke his 
violin acro.ss his knee. His sword is preserved 
at Duff House. 

Page 233, I 6, 2 col. This ballad refers to 
the contest between Mr. Erskine and Mr. 
Dundas for the Deanship of the Faculty .of 
Advocates. On the 12th January, 1796, Mr. 
Dundas was elected by a large majority. 

Page 234, / I, 2 col. Another version of this 
song is printed in Cromek'.s ReUques. I'he 
text is from a copy in the Poet's own hand- 
writing. 

Page 236. On 12th March, 1791, Burns 
wrote to Mr. Thomson :-^' Lest 1 sink into 
stupid prose, and so sacrilegiously intrude on 
"the office of my pari.sh priest, I shall fill up the 
page in my own way, and give you another 
song of my late composition. . . . You must 
know a beautiful Jacobite air. There'll never be 
peace till Jamie coiiws liaiiie. When political 
combustion ceases to be the object of princes 
and patriots, it then, you know, becomes the 
lawful prey of historians and poets.' 

Page 236, / 17. In a copy of this song in the 
Poet's handwriting. the first stanza and chorus 
are thus given : — 

There was a UirUie born in Kyle, 
But what na day o' what na style, 
1 doubt it's hardly worth the while 
To bo so nice with Davie. 
Loeze me on thy curly pow, 
Bonio D.avie, daintie Uavie : 
Leeze rno on thy curly pow, 
Thou'se ay my daintie Uavie. 

Page 236, / 26. Jan. 25th, i759t the date of 
my hardship's vital existence. R. B. 

Page 236, / 35. Var. 

He'll gie his daddic!s name a blAW. 

Page 236, IG, 2 col. Var. 

Yell gar the lasjes lie anparc 



3o6 



NOTES. 



Page "zyj, 1 13. On 20th ]\Iarch, 1793, Burns 
wrote Mr. Thomson : — ' This song js one of my 
juvenile works. I do not think it very remark- 
able, either for its merits or demerits.' 

Page 237, / 13, 2 col. Vnr. 

And ay J miii't the witching smile. 

Page 237, / 19, 2 col. Var^ 

AVha spied I but my ain dear laa's. 

Page 237, / 23, 2 col. Var. 

Wi' I'remit voice, quoth I, Sweet lass; 

Page 237, / 32, 2 col. Var. 
And lov'lier look'd thart ever. 

Page 237, /40, 2 col. Var. 
Syno wallow't like a lily. 

Page 237, / 41, 2 col. Var. 

And .sank within my arms, and cried. 

Page 238, / 3. Var. 

Though wealth be sraa*, we're ricTi in love.. 
page 2.1%, I $. Var. 

Quo' she. My ^andsire left nic gear. 
Page 238, / 7. Var. 

And come, my ain dcar.soger lad. 

P(lgc 238, / 17. Concerning this song Burns- 
>vrites :—^ The following song is a wild rhapsody, 
miserably deficient in versification ; but as the 
sentiments are the genuine feelings of my heart, 
for that reason I have a particular pleasure in 
conning it over.' 

Page 239, I X. .Composed 6n the death of 
James Fergusson, Esq Younger, of Craig- 
darroch. 

Page 239. 'Bonic Lesley' was Miss Lesley 
Baillie, daughter of Mr. Baillie of Ayrshire. 
Mr. Baillie, on his way to England with his two 
daughters, called on Bums at IDumfrieS. Burns 
"mounted, accompanied them fifteen miles, and 
composed the song as he rode homewards. 

Page .239, 7 24, 2 col. Jean Armour is the 
' Mauchline lady ' referred to. 

Page 240. 'My Montgomerie's Pegg>',* 
writes Burns, ' was my deity for.six or eight 
months. . . . A vanity of showing my parts in 
courtship, particularly my abilities at a billet- 
doux, which I always piqued myself upon, 
made me lay siege to her.' Burns, after he had 
warmed into a passion for Peggy, foimd that 
she was pre-engaged, and confessed that it cost 
him some heartaches to get rid of the affair. 

Page 240, / 29, 2 col. Dr. Currie inserted this 
in his first edition, but withdrew it on finding it 
was the composition of Helen Maria Willianls. 
I'.urns h.ad copied if; his MS. is now in the 
British Museum. 

Page 241, I 25. A song, in several stanzas, 
similar to this occurs in the yo//y Beggars. 

Page 241, / 16, 2 col. This song was written 
on one of the anniversaries of Highland Mary's 
death. 

PiIjH' ?4.i. I2S, 2 col. Vary 
]5tCmlty can jiot oflH(9«. 



Page 242, / 3. Var. 

Time but the impression stronger mnken. 
' Page 242, / 6. Var. 

Where is tliy place of heavenly rest? 
Page 242, /41. Burns chanted these verse^i 
on hearing some one express his joy at General 
Dumourier's defection from the service of the 
French Republic. 
Page 243, / 19. Var. 

The piimvo.-ics blush in the dews of the morning. 
Page 243, / 23. Var, 

NobiixU sweetly .singing, no flowers gaily springing. 
Page 243, / 28. Var. 

here the wild beasts find shelter, though I can find 
none. 

Page ■242, ^32. Var, 
Alas! can I make you no better return? 

PagV 245, 1 42- Charles James Fox. 

Page 246, / 3. Thcmas Erskine. A some 
what different version of this piece is in Scofs 
Magazine for January' 18 18. 

Page 246, / 13. Burns writes : — * Tlic chorus 
of this song is old ; the rest of it, such as it is, 
is mine.' 

Page 248. The 'Five Carlins* represent the 
five boroughs of Dumfries-shire and Kirkcud- 
bright, which were at the time contested by 
Patrick Miller of Dalswinton in the Whig, and 
Sir James Johnstone of Wcsterhall in the Tory, 
interest. Dumfries is 'Majrgie by the banks o' 
Nith ;' Annan is ' blinkin Bess o' Annandale ;' 
Kirkcudbright 'whisky Jean' of Galloway; 
Sanquhar ' black Joan frae Crcighton peel ;' 
and Lochmaben ' RLarjorie o' the monie Lochs.' 

Page 248, / 25, 2 col. Sir James Johnstone. 

Page 248, / 33» 2 col Captain Aliller of 
Dalswinfon. 

Page 249, I g King George IIL 

Page 249, / 12. The. Prince of Wales. 

Page 249, / 25, 2 col This song, founded 
on an old ballad^ was printed in Johnson's 
'Museum.* 

Page 2^0, 748. Va7:. 

Sae kend in martial story. 

Page 250, 1 26, 2 col: Var. 

I'll breathe this excl.amation 

Page 251, / 1. Concerning this song Burns 
writes : — ' The chorus I picked up from an old 
woman in Dunblane ; the rest of the song is 
mine.' 

Page 251, / 25. Another version of this song 
will be found p. 191, 1 i. 

Page 252, / II. Allan Cunningham mentions 
a report that Burns wrote these verses in humo- 
rous allusion to the condition in v/hich Jean 
Armour found herself before marriage. 

Page 252, / 31. This is fovmdcd on an old 
song.' 



NOTES. 



30? 



Page 252, / 47. This is founded on an old 
song. 

Page 253, lis. This song was altered by 
Burns from a Jacobite ditty. 

Page 254, / 17. Another version of this son? 
will be found p. 181, 1 24. 

Page 257, / 33. It is doubted whether Burns 
was the author of this song. 

Page 257, / 25, 2 col. Of this song Burns 
writes : — 'These were originally English verses ; 
I gave them their.Scots dress.* 

Page 258, / 13. Part only of this song is by 
Burns. 

Page 258, / 31. Part only of this song appears 
to have been written by Burns. 

Page 258, / 13, 2 col. Of this song Burns 
writes": — 'The chorus is old; the rest of it is 
mine.' 

Pa^e 259, / I, 2 col. The foundation Of this 
song IS old. 

. Page 260, / I. This is foiinded. on an old 
ballad. 

Page 261, / 1^. 'The last stanza of this song,' 
Burns writes, ' is mine. It was composed out of 
compliment to one of the worthiest fellows in 
the world, William Dunbar, Esq. W.S. Edin- 
burgh, and colonel of the Crochallan Corps, a 
club of wits who took that title at the time of 
raising the Fencible regiments.' 

. Page 262, / 1, 2 col. The first four lines of 
this song are old. 

Page 262, / 17. The second verse of this song 
is by Burns. 

Page 262, I 33. Concerning this ballad Gil- 
bert Burns says : — * When Mr. Cunninghame of 
Enterkin came to his estate, two mansion houses 
on it, Enterkin and Anbank, were both in a 
ruinous state. Wishing to introduce himself 
with same eclat to the county, he got temporary 



erections made on the banks of Ayi*, tastefully 
decorated with shrubs and flowers, for a supper 
and ball, to which most of the respectable 
families in the county were invited. It was a 
novelty, and attracted much notice. A dissolu- 
tion of Parliament was soon expected, and this 
festivity was thought to be an introduction to a 
canvass for representing, the countj'. Several 
other candidates were spoken of, particularly 
Sir John Whltefoord, then residing at Cloncalrd 
(commonly pronounced Glencaird), and Mr. 
Boswell, the well-known biographer of Dr. John- 
son. The political views of the festive assem- 
blage, which are alluded to in the b.illad, if they 
ever existed, were, however, laid aside, as Mr. 
Cunninghame did not canvass the county.' 

Page 265, / 9. Burns says the second and 
fourth stanzas of this song were written by him. 

Page 266, / 1. This song is founded on an 
old balliad. 

Page 268; / 25. The last two verses of this 
song are by Burns. 

Page 269, / 37, 2 col. The * Heron Ballads ' 
were written on the occasion of the Stewartry 
of Kirkcudbright being contested, in 1795, by 
Mr. Heron of Kerroughtree in the Whig, and 
Mr. Gordon of Balmaghie in the Tory, interest. 

Page 270, / 14, 2^ol, Var, 

For now what he wan in the Indies 
llaa scoured up the laddie fu' clean. 

Page 273, / I. This song was produced at a 
festive meeting of the Kilmarnock Masonic 
Lodge, presided over by Mr. William Parker. 

Page 275, / 7. Gilbert Burns was of opinion 
that his brother did not write this song. 

Page 277, / 5, 2 col. Burns states concerning 
this song:— ' I added the four last lines by way 
of giving a turn to the theme of the poem, such 
as it is.' 

Page 278, / I, 2 col. The text has been col- 
lated with a copy in the Poet's handwriting. 



GLOSSARY 



page line cot. 

K\aU 2 i6 

Aback, aw(iyJrom 5 i 

Abeigh, at.ashy distance , . . 53 12 2 

Aboon, above ....... 79 20 

Abread, abroad, in sight , . . .74 27 2 

Abreed, in breadth 53 36 2 

Abusin', abusing 126 15 

Acquent, acquainted . » . . . 201 18 

A'-day, all day 26 25 

A.d\Q, putrid water 99 31 

Advisement> advice . . . , . 204 20 

Ae, 07ie . , 25 12 

only 246 13 

A.%off 6 15 

AfF-hand, at OJice 30 9 

AfF-loof, extemporaneously . . ,77 34 2 

Afore, before 46 19 

Aften, often .......... 2 11 

A-g\ey, off the right line . .'. 54 34 2 

Aihlins, perhaps .,.-,.. 4 19 

Aik, an oak 89 12 

Aiken, oaken 234 9 

Ain, own ...,.«.,. 16 12 

Air, early ...«.*.. 108 8 2 

K\x\-'gtxvs\Y, earnest money . . . 202 14 

Airles, earnest money .... 132 32 2 

Aim, iron 29 28 2 

Aims, irons 93 37 

Airt, direction 199 26 2 

the point from which the wind 

blows 210 27 

to direct : 254 36 2 

Airted, directed 142 15 

A'lth, an oath li 18 

Aiths, oaths , 80 22 

Aits, oats 6 30 

Aiver, an old horse 37 38 

Aizle, a hot cinder 46 7 

Ajee, to the one side 265 38 

Alake ! alas I 819 

Alang, along ....... 178 4 

Amaist, almost ..,»».. 58 35 2 

Amang, among 18 33 

An', and . 2 16 

An's, and is\. .*,,,, . 58 28 

Ance, once . . . • i 6 

Ane, one 11 21 

Anes, ones 4 8 

Anither, another 33 14 2 

Artfu', artful 223 10 

Ase, ashes 45 13 2 

Asklent, obliquely ...... 140 19 2 

aslant 180 2 2 

Asteer, astir 46 32 2 

A'thegither, altogether .... 166 23 2 

.Athbrt, athwart 210 7 



Page 

Atvveen, betwfett no 

Aught, eight ....... 53 

Aughteen, eighteen 239 

Aughtlins, anything, in the least 151 

Auld, old r 

AvXA's, as oldas 122 

Aulder, older 246 

Auldfarran, sagacious .... 11 

Aumous, alms 48 

Ava, at all 2 

Awa, away ...:.... 2 

Awe, to owe 245 

Awee, a little time 31 

Avvfu', awful ; 93 

Awkart, awkward 77 

Awnie, bearded ...... 6 

Ay, always 33, 

Ayont, beyond 23 

BA', a hall 5^7 

Babie-clouts, baby-clothes . . . 213 

Backets, buckets 96 

Bade, endured 25 

desired . 108 

Baggie (dim. of bag), the stomach 53 

Bainie, bony, muscular .... 8 

Bairns, children 29 

Baimtime, a family of children . 37 

Baith, both .- . . ^ . . . . 4 

Bakes, biscuits ........ 17 

Baliats, ballads 1 14 

Ban', band 128 

Banes, bones . 5 

Bang, a stroke. An unco bang, a 

heavy stroke or effort 25 

Bannet, a bonnet ..-..., 268 

Bannock, a cake of oatmeal bread 142 

Bardie, dim. of bard 9 

HdiXQ^t, barefooted 15 

Barkit, barked 4 

Barkin, barking 9 

Barm, yeast 170 

Barmie, of or like barm ... 34 

Batch, a party 15 

Batts, the botis -. 23 

Bauckie-bird, the bat 48 

Baudrons, a cat 30 

Banks, fr^jj-^i?aw« 45 

Bauk-en', e7id of a bank or cross- 
beam 45 

Y!>w\A,bold II 

Bauldiy, boldly 47 

Bauniy, balmy 205 

Bawk,. att ope?i space in a cornfield, 

generally a ridge left utitillcd 199; 
R R 



Una col. 

34 

27 2 
14 2 



31 
34 



14 
5 

32 
7 

47 

28 

30 



39 



6 2 



43 

20 



23 
23 
15 
30 
20 
8 
19 

43 
13 



23 
10 

9 

13 
20 

43 

13 

2 

13 
25 2 

33 2 
25 
4 
16 



3to 



GLOSSARY. 



Page line col. 
Baws'nt, kaiiing a white stride down 

tlieface l 31 

Bawtie, afantiliar nUmefor a dog J37 24 

Be't, ^^// 17 41 

Bear, barley ........ 6 2J 

Beastie, dim. of beast .. • • • 54 igi' 

Beets, adds fuel tojirc .... 58 32 

Befa', be/all . . . . . , . . - 223 ii 

Behint, behind ....... 10 32 

Belang, belong to 239 30 

Belang'd, belonged to 130 18 

Beld, bald 201 21 

"^^nva, a noise ^ an attack . . . 122 17 2 

Bellyfu', bellyful 71 20 2 

Bely ve, by and bv ...... . 62 ^o 

^GXi, i7ito the sfi. ice or parlour . 38 11 
Benmost bore, the innermost recess, 

or hole 49 4 

Bethankit, the grace, after meat . 72 24 

Beuk, a book . 50 5 

Devil's pictur'd beiiks, cards . 6 4 

Bicker, a wooden dish .... 7 34 

a few steps ttnwittingfy ... 20 18 

WiA, to wis/t, or ask ..... 150 26 

Bide; to stand, to endure ... 13 14 

Biel, a habitation ....... 71 32 2 

Bield, sJielter , . 69 21 

Bien, plentiful 57 22 

- comfortably 203 19 2 

Big, to build ........ 267 33 

Bigg, to build 265 3 

Bigs, builds . . 43 12 

Biggin, building 2 37 

Bill, a bull 31 24 2 

Billie:, a good fellow i 24 

Billies, young fellows .... 55 
Bings, lieaps of anything, such as 

turnips, potatoes .... 24 27 

BirdieSr dim. of birds .... 196 24 

^\t'k, the birch ....... 148 15 

Birks," birches 179 13 

Birkeft, birchen ....... 147 12 2 

Birken shaw, a small birch wood 198 6 

l&ixkxQ, a spirited fellow . . . . 17 23 

Birring, whirring . ■ 42 29 2 

Birses, bristles ..,-... 151 i 2 

Bit, crisis 31 30 2 

Bizzard gled/a kite 271 40 z 

Bizz, a btcstlc . 32 25 

Blzzy, biisy 49 38 

Bizzie, busy ,.,.<... 126 7 

Bizzies, buzzes 121 7 2 

Black Bonnet, /^ ^^r . ... iS 30 

Blae, bhte . .... • • . . 127 9 2 

sharp, keen . . . . . . . 141 24 

Blastie> a term of contempt . . 74 27 2 

Blastit, blasted, withered ... a 29 

Blate, shamefaced 31 18 

Blather, bladder ...... 8 37 

Blaud, to slat> ,..;... 29 21 

a quantity of anything ... 77 38 

Blaud in', /<?/^i«^ ...... 128 z 

Blaw, to blow ....... 54 10 

to brae 76 37 2 

Blaws, blows ....... 191 6 z 

Blawn, Itlown ..•*». k. 99 15 



Pagt 

IBXaiV/TH, had blown it ..... 50 

Bleatin, bleating ...... 80 

Bleerit, bleared i8z 

Bleeze, a blaze ....... 93 

Bleezin, blazing 32 

Blellum, an idle talking fellow . gi 

Blether, the bladder 33 

nonsense 77 

Blethers, nonsense ...... 38 

Bleth'rin, talking idly .... 15 

Blin', blind 180 

Blins, blinds .... . . • . . 208 

Blin't, blinded ....... 261 

Blink, a blink o' rest, a short period 

of repose ....... 3 

a short time . 19 

amometit ........ 77 

a look ......... 94 

Blinks, looks smilingly .... 3 

Blinkers, a term of contempt . . 9 

• pretty girls . . . .. , . . 149 

BHnkin, smirking ...... 15 

Blirt and bleary, .fits of crying . 254 

"SiVAt&r, ifie tnire S7iipe ... . . 269 

Blue-gown, one of those beggars who 
get annually on tlie king's birth- 
day a blue cloak or gown with a 

badge ... 81 

Blude, blood 93 

Bluid, blood 10 

Bludie, bloody 137 

Bluidy, bloody ....... 13 

Blume, bloom ....... 206 

Bluntie, a sniveller,a stupid person 203 

Blypes, large pieces 47 

Bocked, vomited 55 

.Eoddle, a small coin 26 

Boggie, dim. of bog 269 

"^0^^%, ghosts •» 92 

Bonie, beautiful i 

Bonnodcs, thick cakes of oatmeal 

bread 12 

Board, hoard ........ 31 

/^oox\.x&&^, elder shrubs .... 31 

Boost, must needs 36 

Bore, a liole or rent 93 

Bouk, a corpse ....... 230 

Bouses, drinks 4 

Bow-hongh'd, crook-thighed . . 207 

Bow-kail, cabbage ... . . . 44 

Bo\/t^ crooked ........ 44 

Brae, the slope of a hill .... 54 

Braid, ^rwarf . . . . . . . 12 

Braid Scots, broad Scotch ... 27 

Braid-claith, broad-cloth ... 15 

Braik, a kind qf harrow ... 77 

Br fimg\, reeled forward . . . 53 

Brak, dtd break 32 

Brak's, broke his 92 

Brankie, well.aitired . . . . 269 
Branks, a kikd of wooden curb for 

Jiorses 20 

Brany, brandy . 125 

Brash, sickness 8 

Brats, rags ........ 12 

Brattle, a short race 53 



line cot. 
34 2 

19 2 
19 

8 

3 

20 

18 2 
33 2 
23 
35 

10 2 
30 2 
18 

28 
14 
23 

12 

45 
i6 

9 

40 

32 
34 



20 
41 
38 
27 
27 

2 2 

6 
17 

IX 

7 
34 
44 

3 

14 

32 2 
35 

35 2 
9 

34 
37 

9 2 
15 2 
18 2 

8 
20 

35 
21 

19 

40 2 

31 
50 
6 2 

30 

36 2 
26 
38 

20 3 



CLOSSARY. 



3" 



Page 
Braw, handsome ..,,,, i 

]iT3yi/\y, perfectly 25 

Braxies, morbid sheep . .' . . 79 
Breastie, dim. of breast .... 54 

Breastit, did spring up or forward 54 
'\&xzz\v3S\y a horse-collar . . . . 157 

Breckan, yem ....... 191 

Bree, juice, liquid ..,-.,. 8 
Breeks, breeches ....... 9 

Brent, straight 93 

smooth, tmivrinJclcd .... 201 

Brewin, brewing 29 

Brief, a writing ...... 166 

'Qx'xz, bridge .25 

Brither, brot/ur 79 

Brithers, brothers ..,♦.. 11 

Brock, a badger , 3 

Brogue, a trick , 32 

Broo, water , 27 

broth 163 

Brooses, races at country weddings 

■w/to sImU first reach the bride- 

groo7n's house on returning 

jFrotn chjcrch 53 

Browst, as 77mch 7nalt liquor as is 

bretued at a ti7/tc .... 255 
Brovvster-wives, ale-house wives . 126 

Brugh, burgh 25 

Brughs, borougJis 9 

Brulzie, a broil 80 

Brunstane, bri77tsto7te 9 

Brunt, bur7iecl ....... 45 

Brust, burst 9 

Buckie, dim. 0/ buck iii 

Buckskin, a7i i7thabita7tt of Virginia 8i 

Buff, to beat 127 

Bughtin-time, the ti7ne of collecting 

the sheep in thepe7is to be 7nilked 1 79 
Buirdly, stro7ig, i77tposi7i'g-lnokittg, 

well-k/iit . 3 

Buke, book 104 

Bum, to hti77t 79 

Bum-clock, a beetle 6 

Bumming, j/iaki7iga noise like a bee. 31 
Bummle, a bhmderer .... 71 

Bunker, a chest 93 

Burdies, damsels 94 

Bure, bore, did bear 53 

Burns, strea77is 43 

Burnie, dim. of bur7i .... 47 
Burnewin, i.e. bur7i tJie 2vi/td, a 

blacks7nith 7 

Bur-thistle, the spear-thistle . . 125 
Busking, dressi/ig, decorating . 263 

Buskit, dressed 25 

Busks, adorns 114 

Buss, a bush '. 189 

Bussle, a bustle 10 

But, ivithojct 189 

But an' ben, kitclte7i a7id parlour 17 

By, past 32 

apart 54 

By at tour, in tlie 7ieighbourhood, 

outside 254 

Byke, a 77t7iltitude . . . , , 52 
a bee-hive • » • 164 



line col. 
13 
39 

38 2 
20 
9 
14 
27 

is 

20 
22 
20 

33 2 

I 
31 

31 2 
28 
10 
21 
28 
10 



15 2- 



15 
23 
12 
26 
42 
17 

6 

36 

ID 
26 
■15 



3 

32 
30 

II 

33 
32 
25 
12 

32 
3 

28 

41 
21 

3 

44 
21 

19 
27 
56 
28 
34 



33 
3 
7 



Page line col. 

CA', to drive ....... 32 35 2 

a call 47 3 

Ca'd, na7ned 126 

driven. gi 25 

Ca's, calls 2 19 

Ca't, called 53 12 2 

Ca' tlirou', io push forward . . 268 25 2 

Cadger, a carrier 48 12 2 

Qa.6\&, a fellow... 12 10 

Caff, chaff .• 41 24 

Cairds, tinkers ....... 35 17 

Calf-ward,a small inclosure for calves 22 33 

Callans, boys 80 7 

Caller, yVijj^ 14 4 

Callet, a trull 48 32 

Cam, came 29 17 

Cankert, cankered 124 37 

Cankrie, ca7ikere(l ;• 148 40 

Canna, can7toi » . 16 17 

Q^nxix&i carefully, softly . ... 12 2 

Cannilie, dexterously ..... 17 24 

Cantie, z'« high spirits .... 47 

Cantin*, ca7iting 128 20 

Cantrip, a char77t, a spell ... 93 33 

Cape-stane, cope-sto7ie .... 33 27 

Csip'Ti'm, ■caperi7tg 51 11 2 

Careerin, cheeT^lly 47 31 2 

Call, a carle . "......'. 148 36 

Carlie, dim. of carle 249 16 

Carlin, an old woman .... 11 6 

Cartes, cards ' . . 58 38 

Cartie, dim. of cart 159 43 

Caudrons, cauldro7is 30 15 

Cauf, a calf 255 21 2 

Q,2.\^zxi^.\i^e^, chalk and red clay 95 38 

Cauld, cold . 5 18 

Caulder, c^/^(?r . 156 20 

Caups, woode7i dri7iki7t,g vessels . 18 32 

Causey, caiiseway 27 23 

.Cavie, a hen-coop 51 31 

Chamer, cha77iber 95 72 

Change-house, a tavern . ; . . 17 28 

Chap, afellozu . 11 21 

Chapman, a pedlar 91 i 

Chaup, a blow 7 42 

Cheek for chow, cheek by j07vl . 10 33 

Cheep; chirp 29 23 2 

Cheerfu', cheerful ...... 58 23 

Chiels, you7ig fellows 3 3 

Chimla, chi77i7iey 150 13 

Chimlie, chi7>i7iey 45 26 

Qh.\tier\x\g, tre77ibling with cold . 55 23 

Chows, c/iews 7 1 

Chuckie, dim. of chuck .... 108 27 

Christendie, Christendo77t . . . 200 20 2 

Chu^e,fat-fa.-ed 10 33 

C\a.c\\3iT\, a /ta77ilet 20 i 

Claise, clothes 32 12 

Claith, cloth 23 5 

Claith'd, clotlied 214 52 

Claithing, ^/^2'///«^. ..... 19 4 

Clamb, clo77tb 201 26 

Ciankie, a sharp stroke .... 269 18 

Clap, a clapper 41 26 

Clark, clerkly, pertaini7tg to eru- 
dition. \2\ 8 



3i« 



GLOSSAR V. 



Page line col. 

Clarkit, wrofe 38 27 

Clarty, cfirfy 170 13 

Clash, zdle talk 34 27 

to talk 140 14 2 

Clatter, to talk idly 8 10 

Kintra clatter, the talk 0/ the 

country 252 18 

Claught, caught 95 19 

Claughtin, catching at anything. 

greedily . 245 30 

Claut, to snatch at, to lay hold of 121 21 
a quantity scraped together by 

7iiggardliness 182 15 

Clautet, scraped 37 40 2 

Claver, clover 204 i 

C\^\QTS, idle stories . .... . . 114 4 

Claw, scratch 10 21' 

Clean, handsome ...... 200 .14 

Cleckin, a brood ■ 122 9 2 

deed, to clotJie 42 25 

deeding, clothing 148 4 2 

Cleek, to seize 50 30 

Cleekit, linked themselves ... 94 i 

Clegs, gad-flies 148' 27 2 

Clink, to r/iyme ^7 izj z 

jkoney . .• 142 11 2 

CVmVm, sitting down suddenly . 16 13 

CWukumheW, the church bgll-7-inger .19 9 

Clips, s/icars . 33 31 

Clishmaclaver, idle conversation . 28 15 

Clockin-time, hatching-ti77ie . . 81 24 2 

Cloot; the hoof 32 31 

Clootie, Satatt . 31 2 

i^Xoxai, humps or swellings after 

a blow 80 2 2 

Clouts, clothes 29 22 2 

Clout, to patch . ^ 51 82 

a patch 231 40 

Clud, a cloud ....... 84 15 

Cluds, multittides ... . . , 230 28 

C\\ie, a portion of cloth or yarn . 207 20 
Clunk, the sound emitted by liquor 

vJJien shaken in a cask or bottle, 

when the cask or bottle is half 

empty 51 26 2 

Coatie, dim. of coat ..... 251 16 

Co3.x.m, coaxing 78 35 

Coble, aflshing-boat 53 22 

Cock, to erect 79 28 

Cocks, good fellows ..... 81 2 

Coc\dc, 6m. oi cock, a good fellow 108 29 2 

Cod, a pillow 250 9 

Co'er, to cover 52 36 

Coft, bought 94 30 

Cog, a wOoden dish 7 34 

Coggie, dim. of cog 37 36 2 

Coiia, from^ ^yl^, ^ district of 

Ayr^hi^e, so called, saith tra- 
dition, from. Coil, or Coila, a 

Pictish tnonarch 79 31 

Collie, a country dog 123 

C,o\\\&s\vzi\^e,anuproar,aquarrel no 33 

Commans, commandments ... 14 21 

Comm' , cD7ning 132 25 

Compleenin, complaining . . . 202 27 

Converse, conversation .... 150 23 



Page line eol, 

Cood, the cud 7 i 

Cook, fools, ninnies 57 31 

Cookii, t/iat appeared and disap- 
peared by fits 47 32 

Coost, did cast ....... 32 33 

Cootie, a wooden kitchen dish • . 31 S 
Fowls whose legs are clad with 

feat/iers art also said to be 

cootie 42 30 2 

Corbies, crows 27 45 

Corvit, fed with oats . .... 53 11 2 

Corss, the market-place .... 151 27 

Couldna, could fiot 164 32 2 

Counted, cotisidered ...... 124 52 

Countra, coufitry 52 

Couthie, kindly, loving .... 45 21 
Cowe, to terrify. Cowe the cadie, 

terrify tJie fellow 12 10 

to lop 30 17 

afright 80 13 2 

Cowp the cran, to tn?nble over . 166 15 

Cowpit, tumbled ...... 22 2 

Cowpet, tzimbled 126 19 2 

Cow'rin, cowering 54 19 

Cowr, to cower 128 i 

Cour, to cower ....... 94 33 

Cowt, a colt . 37 37 

Cowte, a colt 104 24 

Cozie, cozy . 18 7 

Crabbit, crabbed ...... 6 3 

Crack', a story or Jiara7tgue . . 10 23 

talk 19 18 

Crackin, co7iversi7ig, gossipi7ig . 47 

Craft, a croft .....<. 36 36 

Craft rig, a croft ridge .... 227 27 

Craig, tlte throat 96 32 

Craigie, dim. of C7-aig, the throat 51 17 2 

Craigs, crags . 146 16 

Craigy, craggy 89 45 

Craiks, landrails -84 25 

Crambo-clink, rhy77ies .... 71 14 

Crambo-jingle, rhymes .... 76 33 

Crank ous, irritated .,...' n 35 

Cranreuch, hoarfrost .... 48 .6 

Crap, to crop. 84 12 

Craps, crops ,....,., 34 27 

Craw, to crow ....... 42 30 2 

Crawlin, crawling 74 ii 

Creel, my senses wad be in a creel,- 

to be crazed, to be fasci7iated . 78 31 2 
Creepie-chair, the chair o*- stool of 

repentance ....... ^13 g 

Creeshie, jfyi^ajy 29 8 

Crocks, old sheep 126 33 

Croods, coos . . v . . . . . 79 52 

Crooded, cooed 242 33 2 

Cronie, acoi7irade 15 i 

Croon, a Jwllow a7td co7ttinued 

moan 47 9 2 

Crouchie, crook-backed .... 46 29 2 

Crouse, gleefully, with spirit . . 4 7 

CY0V{d\G, porridge . , . . . . 231 2 

Crowdie-time,^^r(?rt^^M/-//>«^ . '. 15 14 
Crummock, a staff with a crookdd 

head . . . ■ 94 ^5 

Crump, crisp J5 27 



GLOSSARY, 



3«3 



Pofire line cot 
Crunt, a blow on the head with a 

cudgel So 4 2 

Cuddle, to fondle loi 23 

Cuifs, blockheads, 7iinnies ... So 
Cummock, a short staff with a 

crooked head 71 19 2 

Cunnin, cu7ining 202 16 

Curch, a female head-dress . . 252 17 2 

Curchie, a curtsey 14 25 

Curmurring, a rmitbling noise. . 23 14 

Curpin, the crupper 46 92 

Curple, tlie crupper 125 28 2 

Cushats, wood-pigeons .... 203 25 2 
Ciistock, the centre of a stem of 

cabbage 45 5 

Cutty, sJiort, bob-tailed .... 94 25 

Q\xt, fashion, shape 96 22 

'DMiT>l'E, father 49 7 

Daez't, sttcpefed' i6i 5 2 

Daffin, merriment 27 

JiaSx., foolish 4 27 

Dails, deals of wood for sitting on 15 34 
Daimen-icker, an ear <f com now 

and tlien . 54 33 

Daisie, the daisy 53 8 

Damies, dim. of datttes .... 108 33 

Dam, water 13 40 

Danton, to subdue 140 21 

Dang, knocked, pttshed .... 239 8 2 

Dappl't, dappled 53 9 

Darin, daring . . . . . .- . 210 14 

Darklins, darkling 45 25 2 

Daud, to pelf 29 19 

Daudin', pelting 126 8 

Dauntingly, daimtlessly , . . . 233 22 

Daur, to dare 46 11 

Daur't, dared 53 " 

Daur na, dare not . . . . . . 205 7 

Daut, to fondle, .to make much of 140 26 

Dawte, to fondle 255 26 

Dav/txt, fofidled, caressed ... 31 23 2 

Daurk, a day's labour .... 54 12 

Daviely, spiritless . . • . . . . 137 8 2 

Davie's, King David's .... 166 12 

Daw, darun 20a 23 2 

Dawin, the dawning 252 31 

Dawds, lumps, large pieces , . . 18 36 

Dead-sweer, but little iticlihed . 73 23 2 

Deave, to deafen 30 23 2 

Deils, devils 5 48 

Deil ma care, devil may care . . 21 38 

t^Gil haet, devil a thi7ig . ... 5 34 

Deleerit, deliricns . ..... 46 17 

Delvin, delving. .'..... 73 42 

Descrive, to describe 79 27 2 

D.eaervin, deserving 54 8 2 

Deservin't, deserving 6f it . . . 151 26 2 

Deuk, a duck 249 10 2 

Devel, a stunning blow .... 42 33 

Dictionar, a dictionary .... 122 27 

Diddle, to strike or jog .... 148 30 

Differ, difference ...... 41 22 2 

Dight, chanedfrom chaff ... 41 23 

to wipe away 51 i 

Din, dim in colour 207 11 



Page 

Dine, dinner-time 226 

Ding, to surpass ...... 32 

be pushed or upset . . . * . 36 

Dings, knocks .^ 140 

Dink, neat, trim 246. 

Dinna, do not ....... 19 

Dinner 'd, diTted iii 

Dirl, a vibrating bloiv .... 21 

to vibrate 93 

Dirl'd, executed with spirit . . 239 

Disagreet, disagreed 127 

Dizzen, a dozen 5 

Dizzie, dizzy 77 

Dochter, daughter 248 

HoivC , doing . no 

Doited, sttipefied 7 

Donsie, unlucky ...... 41 

Docked, ducked . " 50 

Dools, sorrows 101 

Doolfu', sorrowful 122 

Doos, pigeons . . . . • . ." . 230 

Dorty, supercilio7ts, huffy ... 12 

Douce, grave, sober 27 

Doucely, soberly 9 

Doudled, dandled . . . .' . . 262 

Dought, could, tnight .... 140 
Dought na, did not, or did not 

choose to 168 

Doup, the backside . . . . . joi 
Doup-skelper, one that strikes tlie 

tail no 

Dour, stubborn 207 

Doure, stubborn ....... 55 

"Doxx^^r, more decorous . • . . in 

Dow, do, can 19 

Dowe, do, can 165 

Dowff, pithless, silly ..... 77 

Dowie, low-spirited ...*.. 33 

Downa bide, cannot stand ... 13 
Downa do, a phrase signifying 

impotettce 249 

Doylt, stupid 8 

Doytin, walkitig stupidly ... 51 

Dozen'd, impotent, torpid . . . 141 

Dozih, stupefiedy impotent . . . 202 

Draiglet, draggled 254 

Drants, sour hw7iours .... 245 

Drap, drop, a small quantity . . 7 

Drappie, dim. of drap .... 161 

Drapping, dropping ..... 62 
Draunting, drawling, of a slow 

enutuiation , 121 

Draw't, draw it 166 

Dree,, to endure 252 

Dreeping, dripping 35 

Dreigh, tedious 53 

Dribble, drizzle 54 

Driddle, to play 50 

to move slowly 148 

Drift, a drove. Fell aff the drift, 

wajideredfrovt his companions 44 

Droddum, the breech 74 

Drone, the bagpipe 222 

Droop-rumpl't, that droops at the 

crupper 53 

Drouk, to moisten 268 



line cot. 
39 2 
13 2 

12 2 

3 

33 

7 

20 

39 
30 

6 2 
26 
30 
34 
25 
30 
13 
31 
32 

I 2 
26 

13 2 

33 
22 

27 

22 
3 2 



26 



31 



12 

12 

16 2 
36 

31 

J4 

23 2 
27 
34 
27 
29 
3 2 
27 
23 
J3 
io 

20 2 

17 2 
18 

13 2 
8 2 

29 2 
31 2 

33 

H a 
17 2 
23 

J9 2 
12 



3H 



GLOSSARY. 



Page line col. 

Droukit, wet, drenched .... ?oi 22 2 

Drouth, thirst . 10 9 

Drouthy, thirsty ...... 91 2 

Druken, drunken ...... 8 27 

Drumly, muddy 4 37 

Drummock, jncal and water mixed 

^^ 71 20 z 

Drxint^et, soitr humour ... 45 32 

T>ry, thirsty . 50 26 

Dubs, small ponds , ...... 73 42 

Duds, garments ...... 32 26 

Dudclie, ragged. i 20 

Duddies, garments 48 10 

Dung, knocked 10 40 

Dunted, ^^-a^, thumped .... 120 21 

Dunts, blows, .knocks ..... 180 12 

Durk, a <//r/^ I . . II 37 

Dikht, pushed by a ratn or ox . 38 92 

Dwalling, dwelling ..... 104 6 2 

Dwalt, dwelt ....... 207 17 

Dyvors, bankrupts, disreputable 

fellows . . , 151 5 2 

EARNS, ^ag-^f 83 18 2 

Eastlin, eastern. ....... 141 24 

Ee, eye. ......... 25 24 

to watch 141 5 

Een, eyes 141 33 2 

E'e brie, the eyebroto 262 26 

^' en, evening . 31 6 

E'enins, evenings ...... 77 24 

"Ecn^, scared, dreading spirits . 179 18 

Eild, age 26 21 

Eke, also .......... 108 34 2 

"EAhncV-s, elbows ....... 29 31 2 

Eldritch, yW^/^^^/.. 16 33 

El^ckit, elected 126. 35 2 

Eller, an elder . . - ^ . . . 248 25 

En', end ......... 261 22 2 

Enbrugh, Edinburgh . .... 78 40 2 

Eni'brugh,^<//«3«r^A ...» 137 24 2 

Enow, enough S 24 

Ensuin,^«j«/«^ ...... 54 41 

Erse, Gaelic 32 13 2 

Especial, especially ..... 29 13 2 
Ether-stane, <j:<&'l?r--Sif<?w^ . . .-'263 2 z 

Ettle, design 95 iS 

Expeckit, expected 126 31. 2 

Expec', expect .' . 265 35. 

Eydent, diligent ...... 62 30 

FA', lot 32 22 

¥3L,/all . 57 23 2' 

¥a.c&'t, faced. . . 54 8 

¥z.ddom!t, fathomed ...... 47 12 

F2LQ,foe . . ' 42. 33 2 

Fsiem,foajn ' 6 28 

Faikit, bated ^ 103 29 

Failins, failitt^, 141 4 2 

Fair-fa', a benediction .... 72 i 

¥z\nn, a present, a reward . . 23 .^ ;;6 

YaxcXy, entirely, completely . . . 211 J -32 

VallovfyafelloTv ...... 37 3 

Fa'n, have fallen 96 2 

Fz.^ found ......... 164 31 2 

f And, found 79 19 2 



Page line col. 

Paris, cakes of oat-bread . . i 15 26 

Fash, trouble tnyself ...... 34 29 

Fash your thumb, trouble yourself 

in the least . , 10 14 

Fash't, troubled 35 2 

Fashous, troubleso7ne . . , . . . 142 2 2 

Fasten-een, Fasten's-even .... 75 33 2 

Fatt'rels, ribbon-ends 74 29 

Faught, afffht 190 12 , 

F'auld, a fold 100 5 

FcLulding,- folding 96 52 

Fa.u\ding slap, the gate of t/ie fold 226 n 

Faun, fallen 205 4 2 

Fause, false 129 15 

Fa\xt, fault 164 31 2 

Fante, fault 201 30 

Fautor, a transgressor . . . , . 252 12 

Fawsont, seeinly 4 14 

FGarivL, fearful 47 22 

Feat, spmce 44 i 2 

Fecht, to fight 4 34 

Fechtin, fighting ...... 32 10 

Feck, the greater portion • • • 14 34 

Feckly, mostly • . . 104 29 

Fecket, an under waistcoat with 

sleeves 120 13 2 

Feckless, powerless, without pith 72 8 2 

Feg, a fig 57 38 

F^\d&, feud 43 10 

Feirie, clever 249 11 2 

Fell, the flesh immediately under 

the skin ......... 30 52 

Jieen, biting 55 i 

nippy, tasty 63 30 

Fen, a successful struggle, a shift 201 2 2 

Fend, to keep off 15 37 

to live comfortably 33 8 

FsxXxe, to lUonder 3 40 

a term of contempt . ^ .... 74 10 

FetcKx., pulled intermittently . . 53 25 2 

Fey, predestined 230 23 2 

Fidge, to fidget 10 21 

Fidgin-fain,^^^^//«^a//M ^rt^^r- 

ness 76 13 

Fiel, soft, smooth ...... 203 20 2 

F'lQnt, a petty oath. The fient a, 

the devil a bit of 116 

Fler, healthy, sound 57 36 

brother, friend ...... 108 27 

Fxere, friend, comrade .... 227 i 

Fillie, a filly 104 10 

F'xri, find. . 142 2 2 

Fissle, to fidget 77 13 2 

F\t,foot 45 62 

Fittie-lan, tJie 7iear horse of the 

hindmost pair in tJu plough . 53 25 2 
Fizz, to 7nnke a hissing noise like 

fermentation 7 39 

FXakan, flapping, fluttering . . 151 12 2 

Flae, a flea ........ 165 22 2 

Flang, did fling or caper ... 94 35 

FXann&n, flannel 74 19 a 

Flarin,^arz«.^ 204 9 

Flatt'rin, flattering ..... 72 28 2 

Fleech'd, supplicated 180 5 a 

Fleechin, sitpplicatirig .... "^-i Tfi 



GLOSSARY. 



Its 



fcLge line cot. 

Fleesli, ajieete » . t t . « • 33 31 .2 

Fleg, a kick, a random stroke. . 78 i 

a sudden motion . . , » «• • J44 33 

Y\e\.\\'r\n, yiattering^ .«.•«• 72 26 

Flewit, ajharp blow t » , . . 166 16 2 

Fley'd, scared ...,,.. 20 38 

FlichteiiTi', _finitertn^ • . , . 62 4 

Flie, a fly. ....«*•. 52 21 

Flinders, j^n?^j. ,,<,,, -71 40 

Flinging, capering, * . . . . 94 15 

Flingin-tree, a y?rt// < . . > . 38 7 

P"liskit,_/>r^/^^ .,...«. 53 31 2 

F'lit, remove 54152 

F\'\X.X.Q^\x\g, fluttering . .... 226 18 

Flyte, to scold 262 8 2 

FodgcX, sgttat or phcmp . ... 95 34 

Foor, to /are, ....... 267 25 

Foord, a/ord 3^ 33 2 

Foorsisiy, late in the ti/temoon , 159 i 2 

Forbears, y^r<^//zcrj, , , . . 33 15 

Forbye, besides ....... 22 25 

¥oT{^.\rn, iuorn-07{t, Jaded . . . 26 21 

Forfoughten,y^^/'f«^^ .... J25 5 

Forgather, to make acquaintance 

with .......... 33 72 

Forgather'd, w/r/ i 6 

YoTgxc, forgive ....... 'j'z 2>^ !2 

FQr']csV.et, Jaded with/atigtte . , 77 24 

V oxr\t, fly rzvard. .,,... 114 52 

¥or't,/orit <....... 23 28 

Fother,flodder ....,., J04 37 

Vow, /till 17 40 

tipsy , 20 2 

a bushel • . . 54 10 2 

Foughten, troubled 4 45 

Fotith, an abutidance 96 7 

Yrac,/roin 2 23 

Framinit, estranged 249 34 

Freath, to /roth 7 39 

Frcmit, strange, /oreign « . . 164. 4 

Vricn', /riend 58 44 

Fright, a person or thing 0/ an 

extraordinary aspect . . , 122 11 

Vv! ,/ull 29 n 2 

Fiid, the scut 0/ the hare , . . 42 31 2 

¥ufCt, did blow. . 46 5 

Fumblin', axvkivard 89 

Vurdcr, /urthcrnnce 125 37 

VuTtn?,, wooden /ori/is or scats . . 18 33 

rurnicator,yL'/'«/Vi'i/(7/' . . . . . 166 1 2 
Fiirr-aliin, the hindmost horse on 

the right hand 0/ the plough. J04 20 

Furrs,y//r/'(?7('J 14 7 

Fushioiiless, pithless 249 16 

¥y, an e.rcltr>natioit 0/ haste . . 141 15 

V^Vq, to be in a /uss about trifles 71 33 

Fylc, to soil or dirty 207 24 2 

Fyl'd, dirtied 16 3 

GAR, to speak fluently « » . . 11 2 

thtf mouth ......... 30 2 

C>abs, tongues • . }4 1 '■• 

tJae, go , ♦... 71' 

gave ......•»,. 47 8 

Cncd, walked ....... 14 16 

ivpiit , 15 14 



^PS.ge'line col. 

Gaen, g'one 21 35 

Gaels, manner^ 33 ^^ 

Gairs, triangular pieces 0/ cloth 

inserted at tJie bottom 0/ a 

shift or robe 246 9 2 

Gane, g07ie 19 21 

Gang, to go 1 12, 

Gangrcl, vagrant 48 8 

Gapin, gaping 141 13 

Gar, io make . 11 8 

Gar't, made 53 22 2 

Garten, garter , , 44 62 

Gash, sagacious i 29 

Gashin, conversing ..... 45 21 2 

Gat, got ... 3» 3 2 

Gate, manfter *..«... 4 43 

way or road ....... 4 46 

Q:7i\.X.y, gottty 126 15 2 

Gaucie, co77i/ortable looking . . 18 37 

Gaud, the plough shaft .... 233 3 
Gaudsman, aploughboy, the boy who 

drives the horses ifi the plough 104 .36 

Gaun, going 4 23 

Gaunted, jt"^w«^^ 110 28 

Gawcie, /W/y, large ^ 35 

Qx^\C\^%, foolish persons , ... 122 19 

Ga.y\\cs, pretty well 151 24 

Gear, wealth, goods 4 46 

Weel-hain'd gear, «/«>// Jrt7v^ , 27 41 

drink 151 33 

Geek, to toss the /lead in wanton- 
ness or scorn 37 10 

O^ds, pike 42 26 2 

Gentles, great /oiks ..... 7 20 

Genty, slender 211 31 

Geordie, George. The yellow let- 

ter'd Geordie, a guinea . . 222 

Get, oj/spring 33 27 2 

Ghaistsj gliosis so 6 

Gie, give 9 '9 

Gied, gave 32 23 

G\zxi, given 71 17 

Gi'en, given ........ 14 34 

Gies, give us 21 8 

Gif, if. ... 45 5 

Giftie, dim. o^ gift 74 30 2 

G\^tts,, play/ill children . . . 101 23 

Gillie, dim. oi gill 71 41 2 

Gilpey, a you7tg girl 46 21 

Gimmer, a ewe/rom o>ie to two 

years old 23 17 

Gin, i/ 15 7 

G\ps\e, gipsy loi 7 

Girdle, a circular plate 0/ iron 

for toasting cakes Oil the flre. 48 14 

Gim, to grin 33 35 2 

Girrs, hoops 264 2 2 

Gizz, a wig 33 26 

Giaikit, thoughtless 41 30 

Olaizie, glittering S3 9 

(^ilamor, glamour 95 82 

Glaiini'd, ^>v/a/(v/ .,,... 250 30 

Glcd, a kite 216 19 

(^liecd, a live coal 252 19 2 

Gleg, sharp 43 25 2 

cleiierly, swiftly 96 19 



3»6 



GLOSSARY. 



Page line col. 

Cle'ih, a g-/eie 203 10 

Glib-gabbet, that speaks smoothly 

and readily .,..., 11 19 

Glinted, ^/(Uwcfi/ 69 15 

Glintin, gcufic^ng 14 6 

Gloamin, twilight . . ... 6 10 

Gloamia-shot,a twilight interview 255 41 

Glowran, stari7ig 52 3 

Q:\owT d, looked enr7iestly, stared . 14 10 

Glunch, a frown 8 39 

Goavan, looking round with a 
strange inquiring gaze, star- 
ing stupidly Ill 10 2 

Gotten, got 79 8 

Gowan, the daisy 191 30 

Gowany, daisied 114 16 2 

Gowd, gold 81 25 

Gov/d&n, golden 114 12 2 

GovfK'A,knocked hither and thither 222 26 

Gowk, a foolish person .... 26 19 

Gowling, howling ...... 73 26 2 

Graff, a grave 167 i 2 

Gx^vci&A, grinned 22 37 

Graip, a pronged insty-jinietit for 

cleaning stables .... 46 67 

Crzwh, harmss, field implement: 7 38 

accoutrements 15 19 

Granes, groans 5 20 

Grape, to grope . ...... 44 12 2 

GYa.^c(iL, groped 171 21 

Grapit, ^n7/^<^ . . 1 . . , . 45 25 2 

Grat, wept 180 10 2 

Gratefu', grateful 72 23 2 

Graunie, grandmother .... 31 25 

Gree, a prize 79. 35 

to agree ........ 132? 3^ 2 

Gree't, agreed 21 6 

Greet, to weep . ir 6 

Greetin, -weeping 10 25 

Griens, covets, longs for .... 271 32 

Grievin, grieving 43 24 

Grippet, gripped, xaught hold of . 45 14 

Gri%%\i:, gristle tj \2 u 

Giit, great 131 22 

Grozet, n gooseberry 74 13 2 

Grumphie, the sow 46 32 2 

Grun', the ground 13^ 34 

Grunstane, a grindstone .... 73 3* 

Gruntle, the countenance ... 8 39 

a grunting 7ioise 46 20 s 

Grunzie, the mouth 207 22 s 

Grash\e, thick, of thrivi7ig growth 3 30 

Grusome, illfavoured .... 170 1 

Grutten, wept 137 10 a 

Gude, t/ie Su^rettu Being ... 33 62 

good 50 6 2 

GwA^&n, good even 164 8 2 

Gudeman, goodman 20 43 

Gudes, goods, merchandise . . . 271 12 2 

Guid, good 4 ^ 

Guid-e'en, ^ood even 20 31 

Guid-mornin, good morning . . 36 10 

Guidfather,y^/A^r-/«-/a«/ ... S3 20 

G\i\A:<m{z,tIie mistress of the house 125 1 

the landlady ..;.... 201 33 2 

Gully, a large knife 20 42 



^age line co7. 

Gulravage, riot 128 3 

Guralie, muddy, discoloured . . . 26 38 

Gumption, vjtderstanding . . . 141 12 2 

Gusty, tasteful 7 36 

Gutcher, grandfather .... 254 25 2 

HA', hall 95 72 

Ha' Bible, hall-Bible 63 38 

Ha' folk, seT^ants 2 26 

Haddin, holding, inheritance . . 270 11 2 

Hae, have 4 10 

^r^ (in the sense of /a^^-) . . 151 41 2 
Haet, the least thing. Deil haet, 

an oath of negation .... 5 34 

Damn'd haet, «t>M/«^ . ... 21 34 

Ha'f, the half 165 31 

Haff,' the half 140 22 2 

Haffets, the temples 63 40 

HaiTet locks, locks at the temples 257 iS 

HafSins, partly 62 44 

')AzSa.ri%-\i\%^, almost half ... 17 26 
Hag, a scar, or gulf in mosses and 

moors 43 7 

Haggis, a kind of pudding boiled 

in the stomach of a cow or 

sheep 72 24 2 

\i2i\a., to spare, to save .... 79 9 

Hain'd, spared 54 16 2 

Hairst, harvest 46 19 

'Aii.ih., a petty oath 4 21 

Haivers, idle talk 125 14 

Hal', Art//. 57 M 2 

Hald, an abiding-place .... 54 28 2 
Hale, whole, entire; Hale breeks,. 

breecJies without holes ... 9 20 

■uninjured 95 ^7 

Haly, holy • 93 3^ 

Hallan, a particular partition 

wall in a cottage 63 29 

YizXWons, clovins, common fellows 151 12 

Hallowmas, the ^ist of October . 165 8 

Hame, home 23 23 

Hamely, homely 53 29 

Han', hand 9 '5 

Han' afore, tJu foremost horse on 

the left hand in the plough . 104 8 
Han' ahin, the hindmost horse ofi 

the left hand in the plough 104 10 

Hand-breed, a hand-breadth . . 207 13 2 
Hand-waled, carefully chosen by 

hand 148 29 2 

Handless, without hands, useless, 

awkward '64 35 2 

Hangit, hanged 251 62 

Hansel, hansel throne, a throne 

newly inherited ..... 234 27 
a gift for a particular season, 

or the first Tuoney on any 

particular occasion . . . . 236 28 

Han't, handed 304 39 

Hap, /fl -wrap "7^ 32 

Winter hap, -winter clothing . 24 25 

Hap, hop 1 50 28 

Ha'pence, Italf-pence 15 29 

Happer, a A^j/Z^-r 4« 25 

Happing, hopping 55 ^9 



GLOSSAR'^. 



3*7 



Page line eol. 
Hap-step-an'-lowp, he?/, step, and 

jump, with a light airy step . 14 . 23 

Harkit, hearkened 38 25 

Ham, yarn 94 27 

Har'sts, harvests 101 2 2 

Hash, a soft, useless /eiioTU. . . 8 27 

Ha'^ A, did smite, did disfigure . 230 i 2 
Haslock, descriptive of the finest 
•wool, being the lock tJiat grows 

on tlie hals or throat . . . 256 9 2 

Has't, has it 22 22 

Hastit, hasted . .' 54 1 1 

Haud, to hold . 9^5 

would keep 1 ........ 96 9 

Ilauds, holds. ; 223 25 

Hauf, tlie half i6r 7 2 

Havighs, low-lying lafrds,tneadows 6 29 
Hauns, hands, as applied to work- 
men, perso7is 103 29 

Haurl, to drag ....... 83 19 

Haurls, drags 46 8 2 

WavixXm, peeling, dragging off . . 47 19 

Hauver, oatmeal 262 17 

Havins, good manners .... 33 22 

Hav'rel, half-witted 44 14 2 

Hawkie, a cow, properly one with 

a white face ...... 31 23 2 

Healsome, wholesome .... 63 27 

W^ap^t, fieaped , .. ■ 41 25 

Heapit, heaped . 54 1 r 2 

Hearin', /tearing ^49 ^^4 

Hearse, hoarse 9 3' 

Hear't. hear it ....... 76 13 

Ileartie, dim. of heart .... 50 34 _ 2 

Hech, an exclamation of wonder 4 43 

Hecht, foretold 47 n 

offered ' 182 21 

Yiachtm', inaking to pant ... 177 42 
Heckle, a board, in which are 
fixed a number of s liar p pins, 
used in dressing hcmp,fiax, 

<&*c loi 25 

Hoc balou, a term used by nurses 

when lulling children . . . 255 1 2 

Hcels-o'er-gosvdy, head 07'er heels 121 13 2 

Hecze, to elevate, to hoist ... 65 24 

Heft, haft 93 46 

Hein .shinn'd, in-shinned . . . 207 12 2 

Hellim, the helm 221 2 2 

Hen-broo, hen-broth 276 2 2 

H"erriet, harried ..151 22 

Herrin, herring 23 34 

Herryinent, fhindering, devasta- 
tion V . . 27 39 

HerscI, herself 23 21 

Hct, hot. Gie him't hut, give him 

it hot . . ■ 12 9 

licugh, a coal pit 31 15 

/z steep 263 II 2 

Heuk, a reaping-hook ..... 248 iG 

Hich, hii^h 254 2G 2 

liid\n\ hiding ........ 71 21 2 

Hie, high 200 30 2 

Hl\ch, to hobble 58 41 j 

Hilchin, halting ...... 4G 27 2 

^iill tap, hilltop 244 ' 1 



Hiltie skiltie, heller skelter, 

Himsel, himself , , . , 

Hiney, honey ..... 

Hing, to hang 

Hingin', hanging .... 

Hinging, hanging .... 

Hirples, walks with^ difficulty 

Hirplin, limping .... 

Kissels, hissel, so many cattle 
one person can attend 

Histie, dry, barren . . 

Hitch, a loop or knot . . , 

Hizzies, young wo^nen ; 

Hoast, a cough 

Hoble, to Iwbble .... 

Hoddin, the motion of a man 
horseback ..... 

Iloggie, a young sheep after it is 
smeared and before it is shorn 

Hog-score, a kind of distance-line 
drawn across tlie rink , . 

Hog-shouther, a kind of horse- 
play by justling with the 
shoulder 

Hol't, holed, perforated .... 

iioo6.ie-CTa\f, tlie hooded cro^u, . 

Hoodock, miserly 

VLool, the- OJiter skin or case . . 

Hoolie ! stop ! 

Hoord, hoard 

Hoordet, /warded 

Horn, a spoon jnade of /torn . . 
a cotnb niade of horn .... 

Hornie, Satan 

Host, a coug/i ....... 

Hostin, coug/iing 

Hotch'd,y?^/^^/^^^ 

Houghmagandie,^r«/(t:a//c>« . . 

Houlets, owls 

Housie, dim. o{ /icuse . .... 
Hov'd, swelled ........ 

Howdie, a midwife 

Howe, /lollotvly 

a /lollcnu or dell 

Howe-backit, sunk in i/ie back , 

Howes, /wlloius 

Howkit, digged 

dztg up 

Howlet-faced, faced like an 07vl . 

Hoyse, /loist 

Hoy'ti urged 

Hoyte, to amble crazily .... 

Hughoc, Hug/t 

H under, a fiundrcd ..... 

Hunkers, /lams 

H until, /lunted 

Hurcheon, a liedgc/iog .... 

1 1 urchin, <t;/ ?<rf/f/« 

Hurdics, /lips 

ll\n\, to fall down ruinously . . 

to ride 

Hushioii, a cushion 

Hyte, mad 

ICKKR, an ear of corn . . , . 
liix'oii, a great-grandchild , . . 



Page line cot, 

103 Ji Z 

s 17 

202 1 1 

29 21 a 

110 5 3 

239 2 3 

264 9 

H 7 



80 32 




69 23 




32 31 




3 3 




9 9 




53 I 


3 


15 20 




269 25 




42 21 


2 


79 26 


2 


. 50 34 


2 


122 10 


2 


148 30 


2 


47 10 


2 


34 4 


2 


31 31 


2 


45 19 




72 19 




74 26 




16 23 




157 12 


2 


35 5 




94 40 




19 26 




84 31 




54 37 




23 20 




8 II 




20 37 




33 21 


2 


53 3 




M7 33 




2 4 




31 18 


2 


I7(> 25 




30 16 


2 


47 10 




53 I 


? 


32 34 




94 8 




5' 33 




230 22 


2 


83 20 




51 28 


2 


I 3U 




26 37 




«59 4 


Z 


207 22 




149 10 




54 33 




73 49 


• 



3'8 



GLOSSARY. 



Page line col. 

Ilk, encA. 38 5 

Ilka, every i 32 

lU-willie, ill-natured 71 38 2 

Indentin, indentitring .... 4 20 

Ingine, genius, ittgenuiiy ... 76 16 

ingle-cheek, the fireside. ... 38 13 

Ingle-lowje, the house hold fire . . 38 32 

In's, in his 25 46 

In't, i7i it 231 41 

VsG, I shall or will 78 37 

I.sna, is not 121 12 

Ithei", oilier ■. 2 i 

Itsel, itself 137 g 2 

J AT), a jade 29 40 

Ja.ds,jrtdes 5 48 

Jan war, Jaiiuary 236 27 

Jauk, to dally, to trifie .... 62 31 

Jaukin, trifiing, dallying ... 45 29 2 

Jaiuner,fioolish talk 254 30 2 

Jauntie, dim. oi jaunt . . . ^ 108 11 

Jaups, splas/ies 26 38 

Jaw, to potir 221 62 

Jillet, a jilt 71 15 2 

Jimp, toJ7iinp 58 41 2 

slender 200 14 

Jimps, a kind of easy stays . . 246 1 1 2 

Jimpy, tieatly 211 31 » 

Jink, to dodge 6 24 

Jinker, that turns quickly ... .53 32 

yu\]i.crs, gay, sprightly girls . . 149 8 

Jinkin, dodgi7ig 32 19 2 

Jirkinet, ati outer jacket or jerkin 

ivor7i by women 246 ii 2 

Jirt, a jerk 78 i 

Jo, szveetheart, a term expressing 
affection and soitie degree of 

familiarity 164 4 2 

^ohh'in', jobbing 166 24 

Joctelegs, clasp-knives .... 45 6 

Joes, lovers 114 4 

Johnny Ged's Hole, the grave- 
digger 22 31 

}QV\a, joking 75 35 2 

Jorum, the jug 208 21 2 

Jouk, to duck 35 33 2 

to make obeisance 270 21 

"^ovi , to swing and sowid . . . 19 11 

l\xm.^\\., ju>7tped 43 9 

Jundie, to jitstle 79 26 2 

KAES, daws 12 39 

Kail, brotli 12 38 

V.3ii\-h\didQ, the leaf of the colewort 22 9 

Ys-sW-rnnl, the stent of the colcTvort 21 46 

Y^A\n, far7n produce paid as rent . 2 16 

Kebars, rafters 49 i 

Kebbuck, a cheese i8 39 

Kebbuck-heel, the re 7naining por- 
tion of a cheese 19 7 

Keckle, to cackle, to laugh . . . loi 23 

Keekin'-glass, a looking-glass . . 176 27 

Reekit, peeped 236 22 

Keeks, peeps 2 22 

Keepit, kept i 8 

Kelpies, water-spirits .... 25 38 



Page line col. 

Ken, know ....,,,. 421 

Kend, know7i ....... 31 14 

Kenn'd, knoiv7i ....,., 19 30 

Kennin, a little bit 42 3 ^ 

Kent, kneiv ........ 3 i 

Kep, to catch anything when 

falling ' . . . 84 44 

Ket, afieece 33 28 ? 

Kiaugh, a7ixlcty 62 8 

Kickm', kicki?ig 122 11 3 

Kilbagie, the name of a ceriai7t 

kind of whisky ..... 51152 

Killie, K ilmaruock ..... 43 22 2 

Kilt, to tuck 7tp II 42 

Kiinmer, rt o^;>/ 78 i r 

Kin", kind . 33 i 

King's-hood, a part of the entrails 

of an ox 2124 

Klntra, country 124 4 2 

Kintra cooser, a count} y stallion, iii 13 

Kirn, a chur/i 31 20 2 

Kirns, harvest-homes 3 42 

Kirsen, to christen 77 n 

Kissm', kissing 276 3 

Kist, a shop cou7itc7 78 14 

Kitchen, anything that cats with 
bread to serve for soup or 

gravy 163 11 

K.\tcY\Qn'i,seasons,7nakes palatable 7 24 

Kittle, to tickle 17 44 

ticklish 27 45 

Kittlin, a kitte7t 47 20 

Kiutlin, cuddling 45 17 

Knaggie, like knags, or points of 

rock 53 3 

Knappin-hammers, ham77ie7's /or 

breaking stones 76 1 2 2 

Knowe, a hillock 2 8 

Knurl, a churl 182 19 

Y^nurWn, a dwarf 114 15 

Kye, coivs 612 

Ky\e, a dist7ict of Ayrshire , . 71 37 

Kytes, bellies 72 21 

Kythe, discover 44 37 

LADDIE, rt/rtrf . . . ■-.■^r-. 49 8 

Lade, a load 90 22 

Laggen , the a7igle betwee7t the side 

and bottom of a wooden dish 37 40 2 

Laigh, low 29 1 1 

Laik, lack 199 27 

Lair, lore '7 39 

Lairing, wadi/tg and sinking in 

snow or 77iud 55 ^ 7 

Laith, loth 54 23 

Laithfu', bashful 63 4 

Lallan, lo7ula?id 32 13 2 

Lambie, dim. oi la7nb 14 20 

Lampit, liitipet ' 10 30 

Lan', land, 'estate ...... 2 32 

Lane, alone . 42 24 

Lanely, lonely . 31 26 

Lang, lotig ........ 128 

Langer, longer ....... 16 38 

Lap, did leap , . i 30 

Laughin, latighi/ig 2i 27 



GLOSSARY. 



m 



Page line col. 

Lave, the rest ....... 41 25 2 

Lav* rocks, larks 14 8 

Lawin, shot, reckoning, bill , . 201 33 

Lawlan', Itywland 50 38 

Lazie, lazy 148 39 

Lea'e, leave 33 12 2 

Leal, trzie 44 42 

L,e!i-rig, a grassy ridge . . . . 179 15 

Lear, lore, learning ..... 7 13 

Lee, the lea 84 i 

Lee-lang, live-long ..... 38 8 

heesome, pleasant ., . . . ..." 204 5 2 

Liceze me,a phrase oJ'congrat7ila' 
tory endearment, I am happy 

in thee, nr proud of thee , . 203 17 .2 
Leister, a three-barbed instru7nent 

for sticking fish 20 23 

Len', lend 201 34 

Leugh, laughed. 29 36 

Leuk, look, appearance .... 18 5 

Ley erap, lea crop 277 29 

"Uiiitttt, gelded 110 62 

Licket, beating 103 27 

Lickit, licked with desire . . . 164 40 
Licks, a beating. Gat his licks, 

got a beating 80 .3 2 

Liein, telling lies ...... 127 30 

Lien, lain ......... 164 i 

Lift, heaven 55 4 

a large quantity 78 26 

W^iXyt to undervalue, to slight . 185 38 

Liken, to compare 28 3 

Lilt, sing 29 26 

Limbics, dim. of lim.bs .... 108 35 

Limmer, a kept mistress . . , 5 8 

a strurnpet 78 9 

Limpit, limped . 43 7 

Lin, a waterfall 83 27 2 

Linket, tripped deftly .... 94 6 

Linkin, tripping 32 17 2 

Linn, a waterfall 47 28 

Lint, flax. Sin lint was i' the bell, 

since flax was in flower . . 63 34 

Linties, linnets 147 34 

Lippened, trusted . . . . . . 108 19 

Lippie, dim. oi lip 206 25 

Loan, milking place 6 12 

lane 194 25 

Lo'ed, loved 92 i 

Lon'on, London 3 40 

"Loof, palm' of the hand . ... 38 32 

Loosome, lovesome ■ 133 10 2 

Loot, did let 47 16 

Looves, palms 73 3^ 

'Lo'i\\, a petty oath 165 25 

Lough, a lake 31 42 

Louns, raganutffins ..... 80 25 2 

Loup, to leap 150 8 2 

Lovin', loving 141 3 

'L.ovf, flame 268 10 

'L.o^dL.n, flaining ...... 52 37 

Lowin, blazing ....... 18 20 

Lowrpin, leaping 180 11 2 

Lowping, leaping ...... 94 15 

Lows'd, loosed ....... 32 7 a 

Lowse, to loosen 52 j ? 



Page Une cot. 
Luckie, a designation applied to 

an elderly woman .... 254 . 29 a- 

Lug, the ear » . . 28 30 

to produce, to bring out. ... 99 3 1 
Lugget, eared. Lugget caup, 

eared cup 7 40. 

Luggies, small wooden dishes with 

handles 47 16 2 

Luke, look • . . 104 33 2 

Lum, the chimney 45 34 

Lunardie, a bonnet called after 

Lunar di the aeronaut ... 74 22 2 

Lunt, a column of smoke ... 46 5 

Luntin, smoking 4 5 

Luve, love ......... 202 6 

Luvers, lovers 204 28 

Lyart,^^^ »4 '5 

Lynin, lining . . 256 i6- 2 

MAE, jnore 22 30 

Mair, ?nore ........ 23 12 

Maist, abnost 2 45 

that nearly ,' 32 24 

Maistly, mostly 3-2 

Mak, make . 3 34 

Makin, making. ...... 18 6 

Mailie, Molly 32 29 

MailinSj^^Tor 141 6 2 

Mang, among 16 24 

^axi'',^, a parsonage house . . , 17" 23 

Manteels, mantles ^4 *4 

yi'a.xVj marks 53 22 

Max's year, 1 7 15, the year ofMar^s 

rebellion 47 20 2 

Mashlum, mixed com .... 12 14 

Maskin-pat, a tea-pot. .... 221 52 

Maukin, a >4ar^. 38 3 

Maun, must 2 46 

Maunna, ?«MJ^ «^/ , 179 31 

, Maut, malt 200 \^ 2 

Mavis, the thrush 85 23 

Mawin, -mowing 20 31 

Mawn, a basket 264 8 9 

mown . 204 13 

yi^yh^y perhaps 4 27 

Meere, a mare 53- 20 

Meikle, as much .52 6 

Melder, f^rw or grain of any kind 

sent to the mill to be ground 91 23 

Mell, to meddle 8 35 

Melvie, to soil with mud ... 194 

Men', mend 32 22 2 

Mense, good manners .... 26 9 

M.Q^s ]ohn, the clergyman . . , 164 -39 

M.e%sm,adogoffnixedbreeds. . i 18 

yi'xdiA^n, the dunghill '37 30 

M.\dLdi&n-cxt<t\%, dunghill baskets . 207 23 2 

Midden-hole, the dunghill ... 47 7 

yixA^fi, a gnat 272 3 

Mim, /r//« 17 15 

M.\m-mo\i' d, priin-mouthed. . , .157 2 2 

Min, remembrance , . . . . 226 26 2 

Min', mind 45 10 2 

Minds me, remembers me m .. t 206 7 a 

M\nd't-n:i, cared *ioi ..... t 49 37- 

M'mme, 7nother, . , . , , .* ,'§3,86 



120 



GLOSSARY, 



Page line col. 

Mirk, dark ....*... i8i 9 2 

Misca'd, abused 29 19 

Misguidin', misguiding . . . ' . 71 23 
Mishanter, misfortune, disaster, 

calamity ....... 140 19 

Miska't, abused , . 128 25 

Mislear'd, tnischievous ♦ . . . 21 2 

Mist, tnissed 47 12 2 

Misteuk, mistook ...... 50 7 

Mither, mother 13 37 

Mixtie-maxtie, conjitsedfy mixed . 12 23 

Mizzl'd, Aaving different colours 137 15 2 
Moistify, to Jttake moist .... 13 38 

Mony, many 3 12 

Mools, the earth of graves , . . 101 3 2 

Moop, to nibble . 33 92 

to keep company with . , , , 247 24 2 

Moorian', moorland 79 38 2 

Moss, a morass 32 i 

Mou, mouth 45 16 2 

Moudieworts, moles 24 

Mousie, dim. of mouse .... 54 31 2 

Movin*, Tnovihg 170 15 

yiucldc, great, big . ..... 10 ji 

much 27 43 

Musie, dim, of tnuse 7^ 40 

Muslin-kail, broth composed simply 
of water, shelled barley, and 

greens • • •_ 35 27 8 

Mutchkin, an English pint. . . 10 26 

Mysel, myself 23 41 

NA*, 7K>/ 5 14 

no . , 42. 21 

Nae, no 1 16 

Naebody, nobody ....... 79 24 

Naething, nothing ...... 20 34 

Naig, a nag ........ 72 26 2 

Naigies, dim. of nags .... 184 16 2 

Nane, none i 10 

Nappy, ale 3 33 

Natch, grip, hold. To natch, to 

lay hold of violetitly . . . 165 31 

Near't, near it 76 17 

Neebors, neighbours 8 13 

Needna, need not ...... 22 38 

Negleckit, ?ieglected m 6 

Neist, next 180 23 

Neuk, nook, comer 18 7 

Ncw-ca'd, newly driven .... 77 18 

Nick, to break, to sever suddenly 21 12 

Nickan, cutting 125 40 

Nicket, cut off 96 32 

caught, cut off 120 a ■z 

Nick-nackets, curiosities ... 96 7 

Nicks, knocks, bloTvs 80 2 2 

- Auld crummie's nicks, may'ks on 

the horn of a cow ... . 132 29 

Niest, next S 44 

Nieve-fu', afistfull 78 20 2 

tiieves,fsts 23 8 

Niffer, exchange ...... 41 20 2 

Niger, a negro ....... 29 37 

Nits, nuts 44 16 

Nocht, nothing 90 7 

Norland, Northland jx 23 



Page line col, 

Notet, noted. ..»,,.,. 104 35 2 

Nowte, cattle ....... 4 34 

O\of . . I I 

O'crlay, anoutsidedress,anoverall 268 2 2 
O'erword, any term^ frequently re- 
peated, a refrain 153 II 2 

Ony, any , , 6 ' 6 

Orra, supernumerary 48 10 

O't, of it 3 24 

O'ts, of it »- 165 26 

Ought, aught, anything .... 232 i 

Ow^(\xas, a7iything in the least . iii 12 

Ourie, shivering 55 14 

Oursel, ourselves ...... 19 38 

Out-cast, a quarrel 126 35 

Outler, un-housed 47 82 

Owre, over' i 36 

too 4 'I 

Owrehip, a way of fetching a blow 
with the /uimmer over the 

arm .......... 8 3 

Owsen, o;r^« . 179 11 

PACK, pack an' thick, on friendly 

or intimate tenns .... 22 

Packs, twelve stones ..... 32 38 2 

Paidle, to paddle 104 26 2 

Paidles, wanders about without 

object or Tnotive 249 13 2 

VzxAXt, paddled 226 38 

Painch, paunch, sto^nach ... 2 33 

V3\\.r\cS!L%, partridges 42 29 2 

Pangs, crajns ........ 17 40 

Parishen, t/te parish . . . . ' . 256 20 2 

Parritch, oatmeal boiled in water, 

stiraboitt 7 23 

Parritch-pats, porridge-pots , . 96 1 1 

Pat, put 20 20 

a pot 45 30 2 

Psittle, n plough-staff . .... 54 24 

Psiughty, /ut7(ghty .37 10 2 

Paukie, cunnings sly ..... 34 i 

Pay' t, paid , 53 17 .2 

Pechan, t/ie stomach a 26 

Pechin, ^<2«^/«^ ,...►. 157 16 

Peel, a tower *. . 248 13 1 

PeeVin, peeling . 30 62 

Penny wheep, j;«a// ^^^r ... 17 41 " 

Petticoatie, dim. of petticoat . . 254 3 

Pettle, a plough-staff 104 7 

Phra.isin, ff altering 78 41 

Pickle, a small qtiantity ... 46 37 2 

P'\t, put 2 33 

Pits, /w/j . .• • • 45 11 2 

P\a.ca.ds, public proclamations . , 222 ix 
Plack, an old Scotch coin, tfu 

third part of a Scotch penny. 

twelve of which make an 

English penny 8122 

P\3id\f:, dim. oi plaid 210 27 

Plaiden, //a/V//«^ 248 ig 

Plaister, to plaister 36 29 2 

Platie, dim. oi plate 61 

Pleugh, plough ....... 527 

Pliskie, a trick .,,.,,, 1 1 38 



GLOSSARY. 



321 



Page line col. 

Pliver, a plover * 51 29 

Plumpit, //fcwz/t'fl? 47 13 

Poeks, wallets 52 35 

VoxwA, to seize for sequestration . 3 16 

'PomA't, poittded 151 22 

Poorthh, poverty ...... 3 22 

Posie, a bouquet 205 10 

Pou, to pull 44 16 

Pouchie, dim. oi pouch .... 103 9 3 

Pouk, to pluck 21 28 

Poupit, the p7ilpit 137 31 

Pouse, a push 165 18 2 

Poussie, a hare 75 35 

Pou't, pulled 44 16 2 

'Pouts, poults, chicks 81 23 2 

Pouth^rd, powdered 157 22 

Pouthery, powdery 57 6 

Vovf, the /lead, the skull . ... 78 4 

Vowme, a pony, a small ho7-se . 76 27 

Powther, powder 13 14' 

Praise be blest, an expression of 

tliankfulness 265 21 2 

Prayin, prayhtg 73 22 2 

Pree, to taste 200 18 2 

Preen, a pin 80 i 

Prent, print 34 22 

Pridefu', prideful , 45 52 

Prie'd, tasted . '. 45 16 2 

Piief, proof 34 5 

Priestie, dim. of priest .... 157 22 

Priggin, liaggling 28 9 

Primsie, demure, precise ... 45 22 

Propone, to propose 41 26 

Proveses, provosts 27 20 

Pu', to pull 205 10 

Pxid, pulled 206 17 

Puddin', a puddiitg 72 2 

Puddock-stools, mushroojns . . 122 21 

Pund, pounds 54 17 

Pursie, dim. o{ purse 50 31 

Pyet, the magpie 141 29 2 

Pyke, to pick 51 14 

Pyies, grains 41 24 

QVAICK, quack 31 92 

Quat, q7(it 36 72 

quitted 96 4 

Quaukin, quaking ...... 45 31 2 

Quey, a cow from one year to two 

years old 47 8 2 

Quo', quoth 165 5 

RAD, afraid 164 8 

Rade, rode 239 19 

Ragweed, the plant ragwort . . 31 14 2 

Raibles, 7-attles, nonsense ... 17 20 

Rair, to roar 84 24 

VifM^r?.Wt, wordd have roared . 53 35 a 

Rairin, roaring 18 n 

Raise, rose 522 27 

Raize, to madden, to inflame . . 53. 1 1 

Ranihlin, rambling 5 5 

PjaxrSee-^ d, fatigued 77 30 

Ramgunshock, rugged . . ... 255 23 

Ram-stam,_/ii;vwrt7'(/ .,..'. 36 9 

Randie, qztarrelsome . . . . ♦ 48 8 



Tag9 line Cot. 
Randy, a- term of opprobrium 

generally applied to a woman 255 38 

Ranklin', rankling . . . . , 151 4 
Ranting, noisy, full of animal 

spirits t 24 

"Rants, j'ollif cations ..... 7 26 

Rape, a rope 30 i6 

Raploch, coarse 103 17- 2 

Rash, a rush ....»,, 72 8 ^ 

Rash-buss, a bush of rushes . . 31 5 2 

Rattan, a rat 121 2q 

Rattons, rats 38 17 

Rancle, fearless 12 25 

Raught, reached ...... 46 id 

Raw, a row . 15 41 

Rax, to stretch 29 9 

Rax'd, stretclied out, extended . in 6 

Raxin, stretching 128 22 

Ream, cream 4 3 

Rebute, a rebut, a discomfture . 262 13 2 

Red, counsel 20 41 

Red-wud, stark mad 11 39 

Reckin, smoking 7 33 

Reekit, smoked ....... 94 2 

smoky 32 26 

Reeks, sjjiokes . . .... 43 

Reestit, withered, singed . . , 32 26 

stood restive 54 7 

Reflec', reflect 137 17 

P.e\{ x^cndkes, sturdy beggars . . 20S 16 

Re mead, remedy 12 6 

Remiive, remove 205 33 

Rcspeckit, respected . . ... 126 33 2 

Restricked, restricted .... 70 26 

Rew, to take pity 204 13 z 

Rickles, stocks of grain .... 126 2 

Rig, a ridge 54 16 2 

Riggin, rafters 38 18. 

Rigwooddie, withered, sapless. . 94 14 

Rin, run . . n 45 

Rink, the course of the stones, a 

tcrin in curling .... 42 19 a 

Rinnin, rzaniing ... . 46 26 j 

'R\'p\>,ahandfulofunth7-ashrdcor7i .53 2 
Ripple, weakness in the back and 

reins J41 20 

Ripplin-kame, a flax-comb . . , 255 33 

Ripps, /landfuls 33 ^^o 

Riskit, made a noise like the tear- 
ing of roots . 53 35 2 

Rive, to burst . 72 23 

Rives, tears to pieces 4 32 

Rives't, tears it 81 18 

Roastin', roasting 141 24 2 

PocV., a distaff 203 it 2 

Rockin, a social gathering, the 

women spinning on the rock 

or distaff 75 33 2 

Roon, round 80 15 

Roos'd, praised • 233 6 

Roose. to praise 72 27 

Roosty, rusty , 51 27 

Roun', routtd 62 n 

Roupet, hoarse as with a cold . . 9 31 

Routhie, ^vell filled, abundant . 264 24 

Rowcs, rolls « . 26 33 



322 



GLOSSARY. 



Page Une col. 

Rowin, rolling 227 35 

Row't, rolled 71 23 

Kov/te, to Unv, to bellow . ... 29 12 

Rowth, abundance g 21 

Rowtin, locating 612 

Rozet, rosin .... ... 74 14. 2 

Ruefu', nieftil 171 9 2 

Rung, a cudgel ....... 12 26 

Runkl'd. wrinkled 15 7 

'Rxxnx.s, t/ie stems of caibage . . 29 16 

Ryke, reach 51 i 

SABS, sois 50 35 

Sae, so 3 21 

Saft, soft . 19 22 

Sair, sore 2 43 

to serve 132 32 

Sairly, sorely . 211 34 

Sair"!, served 81 35 

Sang, song i 27 

Sannock, Alexander 142 11 

Sark, a shirt 11 3 

Sarkit, provided in skirts ... 38 29 

Sauce, scorn, insolence . . . . 11 1 23 2 

Saugh, the willow 53 24 2 

Saugh woodies, ropes made of 

willow -duitJus 108 52 

Saul, soul 4 20 

Saunt, saints . , 7 27 

Saut, salt 33 24 

Saut backets, salt buckets ... 96 1 1 

Sautet, waited 37 36 2 

Saw, to sow 46 39 

Sawin, solving 20 32 

Sawmont, a saltnon 42 23 2 

Sax, six 21 17 

Saxpence, sixpence 142 12 

Say^t, say it 236 7 

Scaith, hurt 239 29 

Scaur, to scare 21 20 

SczMT, frightened 31 18 

Scaud, to scald 31 6 

Scawl, a scold ........ 32 72 

Scho, she • . . . . 236 14 2 

Schoolin', schooling, teaching . . 170 27 

Scones, barley cakes 72 

Sconner, to loathe 35 18 2 

loathing 72 42 

Scraichin, screaming 75 34 

Sera pin', scraping . . '. . 132 29 

Screed, a tear, a rent .... 14 36 

to repeat glibly 104 52 

Scriechin, screeching 9 35 

Scrievin, gliding easily .... 711 

Scrimpit, scanty 34 14 

Scrimply, scantly _. 38 26 2 

Scroggie, covered with stunted 

shrubs .269 32 

Sculdudd'ry, a ludicrous term, de- 

Tioting fornication .... 271 34 

See't, see it 45 36 

Seizin, seizing 10 28 

Sel, self 76 35 

Sell't, sold 54 15 

Sen', send » . . 142 17 

Sen'c, send it 8x 29 



Paje lint eoi, 

Servan', servant 35 37 

Set, lot 16 7 

Sets, becomes 8 34 

sets off, starts 23 15 

Sectlin, gat a fearfu' settlin, was 

frightened into quietness . , 47 22 

Shachl't, deformed , 195 3 

Shaird, a shred 80 33 2 

Sha'na, shall not 239 34 

Shzngstn, a cleft stick . . . , , 29 18 

Shank, the leg and foot ...» 53 is 

Shanks, legs , . 267 27 

Sshanna xhnll n/tf .,.,,. I51 20 2 

ShaLiin't, sharing it ..... 240 20 

Shaul, shallow 127 32 

Shaver, a wag , , 37 42 

Shavie, a trick 51 29 2 

Shaw, show 34 6 2 

Shaw'd, showed 93 ,32 

Shaws, wooded dells 47 21 

Sheep-shank, wha thinks himsel 
nae sheep-shank bane, who 
thinks hi>nself no unimpor- 
tant personage 78 21 

Sheers, shears 33 16 

scissors 62 25 

Sherra-moor, Sheriff-muir ... 46 19 

Sheugh, a trench ? 30 

Sheuk, s'look -49 i 

Shiel, a shieling, a hut .... 204 3 

Shin, shrill 223 5 

Shillin's, shillings 255 22 2 

Shog, a shock 32 25 

Shools, shovels 76 11 2 

Shoon, shoes 34 9 

Shor'd, threatened 28 11 

offered 5^ 35 2 

Shore, to threaten .....'. 132 21 2 

Shouldna, .r^^;</<^ /w^ 177 11 

Shouther, shoulder 13 13 

S\\\iT&, dui shear, did cut grain . 248 14 

Sic, such 3 4 

Sicker, secure 20 16 

Sidike, suchlike 2 38 

Sidelins, sidelong 7^ 39 

Sighin', sighing 128 20 

Siller, money 91 24 

of the colour of silver . . . . 205 23 

Simmer, summer 14 x 

Simmers, summers 5 '8 

Sin', since 21 18 

Sindry, sundry 274 2 2 

Sinfu*, sinful 72 32 

Singet, singed 100 i 

Singin', singing 110 62 

SingXsingit 57 25 2 

Sinn, the sun 126 20 2 

Sinny, sunny 204 30 

Sinsyne, since 183 27 

Skaith, injury 20 41 

Skaithing, injuring 81 19 

Skeigh, high-mettled .... 53 72 

shy, proud, disdainful ... 1 80 ^2 2 

SkeUum, a worthless fellcrm . . 91 19 

Skelp, a slap 72 30 2 

to run 157 15 2 



GLOSSARV. 



Z^i 



J'agc line col. 
Skelpie-Hmmer, a technical term 

in female scolding .... 46 lo 

Skelpin, walking smartly ... 1413 

resounding , . 48 82 

Skelping, slapping loi 5 

Skelpit, hurried 92 39 

'^iV^'cMxn, glittering 114 21 

.Skirl, to shriek 29 28 

Skirl'd, shrieked 45 15 

Skirlin, shrieking 87 

Sklent, to deviate from truth . . .78 14 

Sklented, slanted 32 % 2 

.Sklentin, slanting 3I 22 

Skouth, range, scope . . . . , 129 2 x 

Skreech, to scream 95 2 

Skrieigh, to scream 53 9,2 

Skyrin, anything that strongly 

takes the eye, slwwy, gaudy . 230 5 2 

'Skyte, a sharp oblique stroke . . 48 4 

Slade, slid 23 11 

Slae, t/te sloe 85 30 

Slaps, y?i(w//^/ 3 45 

gates, stiles, breaches in hedges 19 14 

Slaw, ■r/t'zt/ 221 10 2 

Slee, shy 53 27 

Sleeest, slyest 34 1 

Sleekit, sleek 54 19 

Slidd'ry, slippery 225 2 2 

Sloken, to quench, to allay thirst m 26 

SXyp^X., slipped, fell over . ... 53 36 2 

Sma', small 19 3 

Sm&Adum, dust, po7vder . ... 74 15 2 

' Smeek, smoke 38 15 

Smiddy, a stnithy , 1 19 

Smoor'd, smothered 24 33 

Smoutie, smutty 32 27 

Smytrie, a number huddled to- 
gether 2 40 

Snap, smart 1 14 24 2 

Snapper, to stumble 190 19 

Sn^sh, abtue, inipertihence . ... 3 14 

Snaw broo, melted snow .... 26 32 

Snawie, snowy 69 26 

Snawy, snowy 31 31 2 

Sned, to lop, to cut ..... 108 5 2 

Snell, bitter, biting . ... 54 42 

Snellest, sliarpest, keenest . . . 191 17 2 

Sneeshin-mill, a snuff-box ... 45 

Snick, tlie latcJut of a door. . . 32 19 

^n\x\\^, to laugh slily 51 38 

Snool, to cringe, to submit tamely 173 23 

to snub 203 5 

Snoov'd, sneaked 166 26 

Snoov't, went smoothly .... 54 12 

Snowkit, snuffed 2 3 

Sodger, a soldier 48 6 2 

Sodgerin', soldiering 271 36 

Soger, a soldier 237 6 

Sonsie, jolly, comely . . . . i 31 

Soom, to swim .... . . 10 15 

Soor, sour ........ 127 3 

Sootie, sooty 31 3 

Sough, a heavy sigh 230 27 

Souk, a suck 268 II 

Soupe, a spoonful, a small quan- 
tity of any thing liquid . . . 63 28 



Page Wie eol. 

■Souple, supple . . . , v . . 7 2 

Souter, a shoemaker ..... 91 41 

Sowps, spooftfuls 12 38 

Sowter, a shoemaker . . . . . 173 - 9 
SowtK, to try over a tune with a 

low whistle ; 57 23 2 

Sowther, to solder, to make up. . 5 42 

Spae, to propliesy 46 13 

Spails, chips of "wood 151 4 2 

Spairges, dashes or scatters about . 31 5 

Spairin, sparing 18 13 

Spak, spake 14 32 

Spate, a flood 26 33 

Spavie, a disease 5^ 33 2 

Spaviet, having the spavin ... 58 39 2 

Spean, to wean ....... 94 14 

Speel, to climb 78 32 2 

Speel'd, climbed 35 2 

Speer, to iiiquire 244 6 ■? 

Spence, the country parlour . . 33 45 

S^\GX, to ask, to inquire . ... -8 24 

Spier'd, inquired^ 195 i 

Spier't, i7tquired ...... 76 14 

Spinnin, spinning ...... 203 17 2 

Spleuchan, a tobacco-pouch ... 21 24 

Splore, a frolic , . . 48 9 

Sprackled, clambered iii ig 

Sprattle, to struggle 55 17 

Spring, a quick air in tnusic, a 

Scottish reel 81 33 

S^rltty, full of spirits .... 53 35 . 2 

Sprush, spruce 265 39 

Spunk, j?r,? . . 30 25 

mettle . , 51 24 2 

a spark 76 25 2 

Spunk'ie, full of spirit .... 11 23 

wJiisky 151 29 2 

Spunkies, Wills d the wisp . . 25 38 
Spurtle, a stick with which por- 
ridge, broth, &fic. are stirred 

while boiling 96 3 

Squattle, to sprawl 74 26 

Squeel, to scream .... . 31 12 
Stacher'd, staggered, walked un- 
steadily 20 3 

Stacher't, staggered 150 12 

Stack, stuck 93 46 

Staggie, dim. of stag 53 5 

Staig, a horse of one, tiv^, or 
three years old, not yet broken 
for riding, nor employed in 

•work 266 13 

Stan*, a stand 20 33 

Wad stan't, would have stood . 1 21 

Stanes, stones 2 37 

Stang, to sting 52 21 

Stznk, a pool or pond 52 9 

Stap, to stop 20 39 

Stark, strong . . 53 24 

Starns, stars 83 i5 

Stamies, dim. of starns .... 84 12 ; 

Startirf, starting 44 8 ; 

Startles, runs hurriedly , . , , 4 35 

Starvin, starving ...... 54 9 ; 

Staukin, stalking ...... 301 23 ; 

Staumrel, half-witted , » . . 27 38 



in 



GLOSSARY. 



Page line cot. 

Staw, to ste&t • , 39 9 

to surfeit . .^ ..... 72 22 

Stechin, cramming, panting zvitk 

repletion 2 25 

Steek, to close 13 31 

Sleeks, stitches, reticulations . , 2 21 

Steer, to injure 513 

to stir up ...,,,,, 18 4 

Steer'd, molested 131 6 

Steeve,^>7>z, compacted. ... 53 14 

Stells, stills 9 14 

Sien, a leap or bound 201 i3 2 

Hasty stens, hasty stretches or 

rrislies ........ 83 26 2 

Sten't, reared 54 9 

Stents, assessmeitts, d?<es ... 2 i6 

Steyest, steepest 54 8 

Stibble, stubble 54 25 2 

Stibble-rig, the reaper in harvest 

who takes the lead .... 46 28 

n stnbble-ridge 164 33 2 

Stick-an-stowe, totally, altogether 80 14 2 

Stilt, halt 58 41 2 

Stinipart, an eighth part 0/ a 

Winchester bushel .... 54 n 2 

Stirk, a cow or bullock a year old 30 35 

Stockin, stocking 75 34 2 

Stockins, stockings 68 10 2 

Stockit, stocked . 141 6 2 

Stocks, plants of cabbage ... 33 14 

Stoited, walked stupidly , . . 140 10 

Stoitered, staggered • 49 62 

S>\.oor,sounding hollowly or hoarsely 31 9 2 

Stoppit, stopped 170 8 2 

.Stot, an ox ,,,.,., . 30 39 

Stoure, d7ist 29 29 

dust bloivn on the wind . . . 199 30 

pressure of circumstances . . 237 17 

Stown, stolen 184 20 

Stownlins, by stealth 45 16 2 

Stowrie, dusty 268 12 

Stoyte, to stumble ...... 190 19 

Strade, strode 251 2 

Strae, a fair strae-death, a natu- 
ral death 23 I 

Straik, to stroke 12 2 

Straikit, stroked 81 52 

Strak, struck 23 38 . 

Strang, strong 83 26 2 

Strappan, strapping 62 47 

Strappin, strapping 182 17 

Str aught, s Ira ight 32 12 

Streamies, dim. of streams . . . 108 34 
Streekit, stretched. Streekit owrc, 

stretched ac7'oss 26 4 

Strewin, strewing 54 3^ 

"StXx'xAAXG, to straddle ..... 78 2 

Stringin, stringing ..... 3^ 23 

Stroan't, pissed i 22 

Studdie, a stithy '. 85 

Stumpie, dim. of stump, a short 

qnill 77 24 2 

Strunt, spirituous liquor of any 

kind 47 30 

to walk sturdily 74 12 

Stuff, corn 46 24 



Page line col. 

Sturt, to molest, to vex .... 5 25 

Stuxtin, frighted 46 7 

Styme, see a styme, see in the least 161 6 2 

Sucker, sugar 7 36 

Sud, should 7 38 

Sugh, a rushing sound .... 25 29 

Sumphs, stupid fellows .... 125 13 2 

Sune, soon 124 41 

Suppin', supping 276 2 2 

Suthron, Southern, English . , 79 36 

Swaird, sward 32 17 

Swall'd, swelled ...... 72 21 

Swankj'j/a^^/y S3 14 

Sw2inkiss,strappingyoungfellows 15 21 

Swap, an exchange 77 8 

Swarf, to swoon 230 23 2 

Swat, did sweat ...... 35 26 

Swatch, sample ....... 16 5 

specimen , 23 25 

Swats, ale . 91 40 

Swearin', swearing 149 13 

Sweatin, sweating 80 20 

Swinge, to lash 151 6 2 

Swingein, "whipping ..... 30 20 

Swirl, a curve ....... i 36 

Swith, swift 29 II 

Swither, doubt 13 15 

Swoor, swore 45 72 

Sybow, a leek ....'... 133 5 2 

Syne, since i 28 

t/ien x8 39 

TACK., possession, lease . ... no 42 
Tackets, a kind of fiails for driv- 
ing into the lieels of shoes . . 96 9 

Tae, toe 269 7 

Three-tae'd, threi-toed ... 20 23 

Taed, a toad 271 42 

Taen, taken 34 12 

Tairge, to task severely ; . . . 104 2 2 

Tak, to take 4 29 

Tald, told 76 ir 

Tane, the one ^37 27 

Tangs, tongs , . 121 14 

Tapmost, topmost 74 32 

Tapetless, lieedless, foolish ... 77 30 

Tappit hen, a quart measure . . 177 11 2 

Taps, tops 72 18 2 

Tapsalteerie, topsy-tumy . . . 223 14 2 

Tarrow, to murmur 151 24 2 

Tarrow't, inurinured 37 38 2 

Tarry-breeks, a sailor .... 37 15 2 

lid&ixz, a goblet 212 2 

Tauid, told 37 4^ 

Tawie, that allows itself peaceably 

to be luindled 53 29 

T3iV/fi\&s,foolish,thoughtlessyoung 

persons 122 19 

Tawted, matted, uncombed . . i 20 

Teats, small quantities .... 33 10 

T^&n, provocation, chagrin. . . 98 25 

Tell'd, told 166 32 

Tellin*, telling ....... 132 30 

Temper pin, the wooden pin used 
for tempering or regulating 

the motion of a spinning-wheel 267 24 



GLOSSARY, 



325 



Pago lin". col. 
Tep -hours' bite, a slight feed to 
the horses while- in yoke in 

the forenoon 77 27 

Tent, to take heed ...... 20 3 

mark , , 20 40 

'i&vi.\x^, heedful . • 45 28 

Tentier, ijiore careful ;i2o 10 2 

Teughly, toughly 25 43. ' 

Teuk, took 49 27 

Thack air rape, clothes .... 2 42 

Thae, these 22 32 

"^rha^tm, fddlesf rings .... 28 25 

Thankfu, thankful 58 28 

Thankit, thanked 26 42 

Theekit, thatched, covered up, 

secured ........ 126 lo' 2 

Thegither, together 22 

Themsels, themselves 52 

Thick, pact and thick, ./>-£?/^^ . 2 2 

Thieveless, cold, dry, spited . . 26 i 

Thigger, beggittg .15111 2 

Thir, these 94 9 

their 247 TO 

Thirl'd, thrilled 76 5 

Thole, to suffer, to endure ... 3 14 

Thou's, thou art 140 19 

Thowes, thaws 26 31 

Thowless, slack, lazy 77 37 

Throng, busy t S 

a crowd 15 23 

Thrapple, the throat 141 8 2 

Thrave, twentyfour sheaves of 

corn, including two shocks . 54 .33 • 

Thraw, to sprain or twist ... 47 i 

to cross ur contradict 221 36. 2 

Thrawin, twisting 47 13 

Thrawn, twisted 42 18 

Thraws, throes ....... 217 13 

Thieap, to tnaintain by dint of 

assertion 80 26 

Thresh, to thrash ...... 165 28 

Threshing, thrashing 29 8 2 

Thretteen, //«V/^^» 54 17 

Thretty, thirty 255 22 2 

Thrissle, tJie thistle ..... 10 25 
Throwther, a' throwther, through- 
other, pell 7nell 13 17 

Thuds, that makes a loud inter- 
mittent noise 39 8 

resounding blows 230 28 

Thunimart, the weasel .... 127 7 

Thqmpit, thumped 43 8 

Thysel', thyself 130 20 

Tidins, tidings 190 36 

Till, unto 1 '2 15 

li"\\\'t,toit II 41 

Timnier, timber 5 7 

the tree boughs 78 8 

Timnicr propt, timber propt . . 47 13 

Tine, to lose 13 40 

to go astray .... ... 245 7 2 

Tint, lost 26 42 

'V\\\\.:i.%^\n, lost as won . » , , 210 8 

Tinkler, a tinker ...... r j8 

'lijiS, rams ...,..,. 33 27 2 

Ti})pencc, twopence . - . , . 15 31 
B 



Page line col. 

Tid, to' strip 151 12 

Tirl'd, knocked 168 12 

Tirlin, unroofing 31 22 

Tither, the other i 23 

Tittlih, whispering 15 41 

Tocher, marriage portion ... 53 21 

Tocher-band, dowry bond . , . 227 5 2. 

Todlin, tottering 20 14 

HloAh, foxes ........ 33 6 

Toom, empty 10 26 

Toop, a ram 33 19 ■ 

Toun, a hamlet, a farm-house 33 35 
Tout, the blast of a horn or 

i7^mpet 18 10 

Touzie, rough, shaggy .... i 33 

Touzle, to rumple 122 31 2 

To've, to have 205 5 2 

Tow, a rope 53 26 2 

Tow'mond, a twelvemonth ... 63 34 

Towzling, ritmpling, dishevelling 50 16 
Toy, a very old fashion offeinale 

head-dress 74 19 2 

Toyte, to totter 54 14 2 

Transmugrify'd, metamorphosed . 42 3 

Trashtrie, trash 2 27 

Treadin', treading 137 29 

Trews, trousers 230 52 

Trickie, tricksy 53 27 

Trig, spruce, neat 44 52 

Trinkling, trickling 261 31 

.Troggin, wares sold by wandering 

merchants 271 i 2 

Tx(^z, to exchange, to deal with . 151 35 2 

Trottin, trotting S3 26 

Trouse, trousers 251 19 

Trow't, believed 255 19 2 

TxowxSx, a petty oath 26 43 

Try't, have tried 53 21 7 

Tulzie, a quarrel 80 40 :■' 

Tunefu',- tuneful 140 5 

Tup, a ram 175 14 

Twa, two I 5 

Tw4 fauld, twofold, doubled I'p • 264 9 

Twa-three, two or three .... 15 39 

Twal, twelve o'clock 23 39 

Twalpennie worth, twelvepeUfty 

•worth 3 33 

TwaXt, the twelfth 110 22 

Twang, twinge loi 11 

Twined, reft 1 48 21 

Twins, bereaves, takes away from 8 27 

Twistle, a twist 126 29 2 

Tyke, a vagrant dog i 20 

Tyne, to lose 220 14 

Tysday 'teen, Tuesday evening .164 42 

UNCHANCY, t/rt;/^.vw.-.r . . . 151 31 

Unco, very . 3 J4 

great, extreme .^o 3' 

strange 47 jO 2 

Uncos, strange things, news of 

the country side . . . , . 62 22 

Unkend, itnknoivn 79 1 5 

Unkcnn'd, unknown 79 32 2 

Unsicker, unsecure ..... 121 15 

Unskaith'd, unhurt 43 25 ;j 



326 



GLOSSARY. 



Page line col. 

Upo', 2t^on 3 46. 

Upon't, upon it _ . 246 9 2 

VAP'RIN, vapouring . . . • . 46 6 

Vauntie, proud, in high spirits . 94 28 

Vera, very 5 14 

Viewin, viewing 80 16 

Virls, rings round » coluvui 25 47 

Vittel, victual, grain 126 92 

Vittle, victual ^248 27 

Vogie, proud, vuell-pleased . . . 269 28 
Vow, an interjection expressive of , 

admiration or surprise . . 269 28 

WA', a wall 38 22 

\Va' flower, the wallflower . . . 209 26 2 

Wab, a web ..'.;.... 248 19 

Wabster, a weaver iS 43 

Wad, would i 17 

a wager 23 35 

to wed . . . ... . " . . 268 19 

Wad a haen, «/<?«/^ Aaz'^ Aarf . . 212 38 

Wadna, would net 45 29 

Wadset, a mortgage 271 29 

Wae, sorrowful 3 12 

Wae days, woful days .... 253 21 

Waefu', woful 201 i 

Waes me, woe's me ' 22 31 

Waesucks ! alas f : 19 i 

Wae worth, woe befall .'.'.. 8 25 
Waft, the cross thread that goes 
from tlie shuttle through the 

web 77 35 2 

Vi^xk, stray sheep . ..... 126 29 

Wair't, spend it 57 32 

Wal'd, chose ........ 29 35 2 

Wale, choice. Pick and wale, of 

c/ioicest quality 29 16 2 

Walie, ample, large .'.... 72 15 2 

Wallop in a tow, to hang on^s self 268 20 

Waly, ample. ........ 236 31 

Wame, the belly 7 7 

Wamefou, bellyful ..•.,.. 72 36 

Wan, did win . 108 15 2 

earned 1 . . 265 20 

Wanchancie, unlucky , .... 33 34 2 

Wanrestfu', restless 33 12 

War'd, spent, bestowed .... 141 6 

Ware, to spend 108 23 

•worn •. . . . 125 25 

Wark, "work 5 '9 

Wark-iume, a tool to work with . 31 27 2 
Warks, works, in the sense of 

buildings, manufactures, &'c. 168 i 

Warld, world 28 3 

Warlock, a wizard ..... 34 3 

\f^x\y, worldly . ...... 77 16 

Warran, "warrant 11 17 

Warsle, to wrestle 137 4 

Warst, worst S3* 

Warstl'd, wrestled. 25 42 

Wasna, was not 20 2 

Wast, west 99 *5 

'Wa.stT'ia, prodigality, riot ... 2 28 

Wat, 7vet 46 23 

ivat, know ......... 164 1 2 



\ Page line eol. 

Wat na, wot not 165 6 2 

Waterbrose, brose made of meat 

and water simply .... 35 27 2 

Wattle, a wand. ...'... 53 23 2 

Wauble, to swing, to reel ... 53 52 

Waukening, awakening .... 211 8 

Waukens, -wakens 17 39 

Waukit, thickened with toil . . ^i 22 

Waukrife, wakeful ii4 36 

Wauks, awakes 226 4 

VfzMT, to flght, to defeat . ... 21 22 

worse 100 6 

Waur*!, "worsted 53 20 2 

Weans, children 2 40 

Weanies, dim. of weans .... 87 

Weason, the weasand .... 821 

Wee, little 2 29 

A V/&&, a short period of titne . 31 7 

A wee a-back, a S/nall space 

behind 14 16 

Weel, well 5 30 

Weel-gaun, well-going .... 41 23 

Weel-kent, well-kncwn .... 177 92 

Weet, "wet. 8 21 

dew 190 30 

rain 191 i 2 

We'se, we shall or will .... 77 6 

Westlin, western 57 18 

Wha, who I 25 

'Wh.a.e^&T, "whoever. . . .- . . 174 20 

Whaizle, to wheeze 53 22 , 2 

Whalpit, whelped i 11 

Wham, whom 246 8 

Whan, when 38 9 

Whang, a large slice ^5 25 

to give the strappado ..... 29 32 

Whar, where. . _ 262 17 

Whare, where ' 2 21 

Wha's, "whose 16 12 

Whase, whose 23 8 

V^yvaX.iox&rio'i for "what reason not '^ 166 7 

VJhsXt, did "whet or cut . . . . 126 ii 

Whaup, a curlew 169 6 2 

Whaur'Il, where will 166 10 

"Whzep, flying nitnbly .... 29 25 2 

Vfhlddm, running as a hare . . 75 35 

Whigmeleeries, crochets .... 26 8 
Whingin, crying, complaining, 

fretting 85 7 

Whins, furze bushes 4723 

Whirlygigums, useless ornaments 25 47 
Whisht, peace. Held my whisht, 

kept silence 38 7 :? 

Whiskit, whisked 53 32 2 

Whissle, "whistle 10 26 

So gat the whissle o' my groat, 

to piny a losing game ... 81 14 2 

Whistle, tlie throat 150 21 2 

"WhxUeTja hearty draught of liquor 77 12 

'Whnn-sta.nc, whins totie, granite . 18 22 

Whup, a whip ....... 48 12 2 

Whyles, sometimes 2 3 

Wi', with 1 18 

Wick, a term in curling, to strike 

a stone in an oblique direction 42 18 2 

Widdiefu, ill-tempered .... 182 19 



GLOSSARY. 



327 



Page line col. 

VJ\A'i\&, a struggle or hustle : . 103 21 

V^'x^, a small "whirlpool . ... 47 31 

Wifie, dim. of wife . , . . . 62 6 

Wight, strong, power/ td ... 104 9 

"WilW caX, the wild cat 127 7 

Willie-waught, a hearty draught 227 3 
Willo\y wicker, the smaller species 

of willow 121 17 

Willyart, wild, strange, timid . 1 1 1 34 

Wimplin, waving, meandering . 44 11 

Wimpl't, witnpled 47 20 

Win', wind 236 27 

Winkin, winking 30 13 

Winna, ivillnot 11 10 

Winnock - bunker, a seat in ct 

window 93 25 

Winnocks, windows 1217 

Wins, winds 4 2 

Win't, did wind 45 28 2 

Wintle, a staggering motion . . 47 22 

W\n\.\&s, struggles 170 8 

Winze, an oath 47 16 

Wiss, wish 71 25 

Witha', withal 212 27 

Withoutten, withoiit 42 30 

Wonner, a wo7ider, a co7itemp- 

ttious appellation .... 2 29 

Wons, dwells 179 21 

Woo', wool 32 3S 2 

Woodie, the gallows 50 34 

a rope, tnore properly one tnade 

of withes or willows . ... 83 18 
Wooer-babs, garters kfiotted be- 
low the knee in a cojiple of 

. loops 44 5 2 

Wordie, dim. of word . . . . 128 17 

Wordy, worthy 72 5 

Worl', world 4 30 



Page line col, 

Worset, worsted ...... 46 8 

Wow, an exclamation of pleasure 

or wonder 95 37 

Wrang, wrong 36 25 

mistaken 76 6 2 

Wranged, wronged 7^ 35 2 

Wreeths, wreaths 55 9 

Wud, 7)tad . , 8 14 

Wumble, a wimble 71 35 

'Wy\e, to begjdle, to decoy . . , 185 44 

Wyliecoat, a flannel vest ... 74 21 2 

Wyling, beguiling 188 20 

Wyte, to blame, to reproach . . 8 20 

YARD, a gardefi . • 32 13 

Yaud, a worn-out horse .... 272 36 
Yell, barren. As yell 's the. Bill, 
giving no more }nilk than the 

bull 31 24 2 

Yerd, the chtirchyard 236 10 

Y&z\i^t, jerked, las/ted .... 34 21 

Yerl, an earl. 272 24 

Ye'se, yozt shall or will .... 104 21 2 

YesXr&Qn, yesternight. .... 21 35 

Yctts, gates 151 Ti 

Yeukin, itching 11 1 5 

Yeuks, itches 121 9 2 

Yill, ale 18 30 

Yill-caup, ale-stoup 17 29 

Yird, earth 45 i 

Y\x^, the earth . 137 92 

Yokin, yoking, a bout, a set to , 75 57 2 

Yont, beyond 31 33 

Yourse], yourselves 1.9 5 

yourself. 30 30 

Yowes, ewes 33 22 

Yowie, dim. of ^^Tf^ ..... 33 52 

Yule, Christinas i8» 35 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES. 



aod 



ght 



Accept the gift a friend sincere . . 
Adieu ! a heart-warm, fond adieu ! . 
Admiring Nature in her wildest grace 
Adovvn winding Nith I did wander 
Ae day, as Death, that grusome carl 
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ! . 
Again rejoicing nature sees_ . . . 
Again the silent wheels of time . . 
A guid New- Year I wish thee, Maggie ! 
Ah, Chloris, since it may na be . . 
A head, pure, sinless quite of brain 

soul 

A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wi 
All devil as 1 am, a damned wretch 
All hail ! inexorable lord ! ... 
Altho' my back be at the wa'. _ . . 
Aitho' my bed were in yon muir. . 
Altho' thou maun never be mine 
Amang the trees where humming bees 
-Among the heathy hills and ragged woods 
Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy 

December !....• 

An honest man here lies at rest . . . 
Anna, thy charms my bosom fire . , 

An' O ! my Eppie 

A rose-bud by my early walk ... 
As cauld a wmd as ever blew . . . 
As down the bum they took their way 
As father Adam first was fool'd . . . 
As I came in by our gate end . . . 
As I stood by yon roofless tower . . 
As I was a wand'ring ae midsummer e'enin' 
Ask why God made the gem so small 
A slave to love's unbounded sway . 
As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither . 
As on the banks o' warudering Nitli 
As Tarn tTie Chapman on a day . . 
A' the lads o' Thornie-bank . . . 
At Brownhill we always get dainty good 

cheer 

Auld chuckie Reekie's sair distrest . . 
Auld comrade dear and brither sinner 
Awa wi' your witchcraft o' beauty* 

alarms 

A' ye wha live by sowps o' drink 



Bannocks o' bear meal 

Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay 
Behind yon hills where Lugar flows 
Behold the hour, the boat arrive ! . 
Bejow thir stanes lie Jamie's banes 
Bless Jesus Christy O CardQness . 



119 
225 

lOI 

216 
170 
214 
225 
70 

53 
274 

281 

13s 
163 

69 
252 
240 
196 

239 
.103 

206 
121 
227- 
276 
199 
156 
252 
167 
247 
.209 
252 
168 
247 
32 
147 
160 
252 

•17s 
122 
141 

195 
71 

253 

97 

223 

207 

173 
X72 



Page 

Blest be M'Miirdo to his latest day . . 176 

Blithe hae I been on yon hill 217 

Bonie wee thing, cannie wee thing . . . 203 

Bright ran thy line, O Galloway . . . 169 

But lately seen in gladsome green . . . 189 

But rarely seen since Nature's birth . . 156 

By Allan stream I chanc'd to rove . . . 184 

By Ochtertyre grows the aik 198 

By yon castle wa', at the close of the day 236 

Can I cease to care 221 

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west . 211 

Cauld is the e'enin' blast 253 

Cease, ye prudes, your envious railing . 172 

Clarinda, mistress of my soul .... 229 

Come boat me o'er, come row me o'er . . 253 

Come, let me take thee to my breast . . 217 

Coming through the rye, poor body , . 254 

Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair . 190 

Could' aught of song declare my pains . 242 
Curs'd be the man, the poorest wretch in 

life 167 

Curse on ungrateful man, that ""can be 

pleas'd ■. . . . 137 

Dear Smith, the sleeest, paukie thief . . 34 

Dear , I'll gie ye some advice . . . 177 

Deluded swain, the pleasure ..... 186 

Dire was the hate at old Harlaw . . . 233 

Does haughty Gaul invasion threat? . . 231 

Duncan Gray came here to woo . - . . 180 

Dweller in yon dungeon dark .... 83 



Earth'd up here lies an imp o* hell . . , 144 

Edina! Scotia's darling seat ! .... 75 

Expect na. Sir, in this narration. ... 72 

Fair Empress of th? Poet's soul . • . . . 134 

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face .... 72 

Fair maid, you need not take the hint. . 176 

Fair the face of orient day 138 

False flatterer, Hope, away ! .... 124 

Fareweel to a', our Scottish fame . . . 250 
Farewell, dear Friend ! may guid luck hit 

you 144 

Farewfill, old Scotia's bleak domains . . 144 
Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earthy. 

and ye skies. . ; J78 

Farewell, thou stream that winding flows 189 

Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong . 233 

Fate gave the word, the arrow sped . . 239 

Fill me with the rosy winQ 156 



330 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES, 



Pago 

Fintray, my stay in worldly strife , . . 144 

First when Maggy was my care. . . . 232 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy 

green braes .......... 207 

For Lords or Kings I dinna mourn . . 137 

Forlorn, my love, no comfort near , . 193 

Frae the friends and land I love . . , 277 

Friday first 's the day appointed . . . 177 

Friend of the Poet, tried and leal . . . ir.o 

From thee, Eliza, 1 must go 222 

From those drear solitudes and frowzy 

cells 142 

Full well thouknow*st I love thee dear , 197 

Fy, let us a' to Kircudbright 270 

Gane is the day, and mirk 's the night 

Gat ye me, O gat ye me" 

Go fetch to me a pint o' wine .... 
Grant mc, indulgent Heav'n, that I may 

live 

Gudeen to you, Kimmer 

Guid-mornin to your Majesty • . . . . 
Guid speed an' furder to you, Johny . . 



Had I a cave on* some wild, distant shore 
Had I the wyte, had I the wyte . . 
Hail, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv'd ! . 
Hail, thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie ! . 
Hark ! the mavis' evening sang . . . 
Has auld Kilmarnock seen the Deil? . 
Ha ! whare ye gaun, ye crawlin ferlie ! 
Health to the Maxwells' vet'ran Chief! 
Hear, Land o' Cakfrs, and brither Scots 
He clench'd his pamphlets in his fist . 
Hee balou ! my sweet wee Donald 
He looked Just as your Sign-post lions do 
Her daddie forbad, her minnie forbad 
Her flowing locks, the raven's wing . 
Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie 
Here Brewer Gabriel's fire's extinct . 

Here comes Burns 

Here Holy Willie's sair worn clay . . 
Here is the glen, and here the bower . 
Here lie Willie Michie's banes . . . 
Here lies a mock Marquis whose ;titles 

were shamm'd 

Here lies a rose, a budding rose . . . 
Here lies John Bushby, honest man ! , 

Here lies Johnny Pidgeon 

Here sowter Hood in Death does sleep 
Here Stuarts once in glory reign'd . . 
Here, w}iere the Scottish Muse immorta 

lives 

Here's a bottle and an honest friend ! . 
Here's a health to them that's awa . . 
Here's to thy health, my bonie lass 
He who of Rankine sang, lies stiff an 

dead .... 

Hey, the dusty miller 

His face with smile eternal drest . . 
Honest Will to heaven is gane . . . 
How can my poor heart be glad. . . 
How cold is tnat bosom which folly once 

- fired 

How cruel are the parents .... 
How daur ye ca' me howlet-faced . . 



201 

212 

167 

276 

36 

125 

185 
255 
114 
148 
187 
42 

74 
134 

95 
171 

255 
281 

255 
243 
183 
149 

175 
131 
187 
170 

175 
J 49 
174 
174 
173 
149 

"3 
234 
245 
256 

169 
256 
281 
177 
187 

117 
192 
176 



How lang and dreary is the night . , . 188 
How pleasant the banks of the clear- 
winding; 'Devon 215 

How shall I sing Drumlanrlg's Grace . . 147 
How Wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and 

unite , , . . . . 107 

Husband, husbaiid, cease your strife . . 186 

lama keeper of the law 169 

I am my mammie's ae bairn ..... 246 

* I burn, I bum, as when thro' ripen'd corn 160 

I call no Goddess to inspire my strains . 121 

I coft a stane o' haslock woo' 256 

I do confess thou art sae fair 213 

I dream'd I lay where flowers were 

springing sir 

If thou should ask my love 258 

If ye gae up to yon hill-tap 244 

If you rattle along like your mistress's 

tongue 163 

I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen .... 201 

I gaed up to Dunse 248 

I gat your letter, winsome Willie ... 78 

I had sax owsen in a pleugh 247 

I hae a wife o' my ain 180 

I hold it, Sir, my bounden duty. . . . 132 

I lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend . 70 

Ilk care and fear, when thou art near. . 234 

I'll ay ca' in by yon town 234 

I married with a scolding wife .... 256 

I met a lass, a bonie lass 164 

I mind it weel, in early date 125 

I murder hate by field or flood .... 171 

I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor . 103 

In coming by the brig o' Dye .... 257 

Inhuman man ! curse on thybarb'rous art 96 
In Mauchline there dwells six proper 

young Belles 243 

In politics if thou wouldst mix .... 170 

In simmer when the hay was mawn . . 204 
Instead of a Song, boys, I'll give you a 

Toast . 168 

In this strange land, this uncouth clime . 150 
In Torbolton, ye ken, there are proper 

young men 244 

In vain would. Prudence, with decorous 

sneer 159 

In wood and wild, yc warbling throng . 153 

I see a form, I see a face 193 

I sing of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth . 105 

Is there a whim-inspired fool 173 

Is there, for honest poverty 227 

Is this thy plighted, fond regard . . . 221 

It is na, Jean, thy bonie face 257 

It was a' for our rightfu' King . . . . 257 
It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did 

me enthral . 255 

It was the charming month of May . . 219 

It was upon a Lammas night 222 

Jenny M'Craw, she has ta'en to the 

heather 165 

Jockey's ta'en the parting kiss .... 210 

John Anderson my jo, John 201 

Kcmble, thou cur'st my unbelief . . . iji 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES. 



331 



Page 

Ken ye ought o' Captain Grose ?. . . . 232 

Kilmarnock Wabsters, fidge and claw . . 29 

Kind Sir, I've read your paper through . no 

Know thou, O stranger to the fame . . 173 

Lament him, Mauchline husbands a . . 174 

Lament in rhyme, lament in prose ... 33 

Landlady, count the lawin 258 

Lass, when your niither is frae hame . . 164 
Last May a braw wooer cam down the 

lang glen i94 

Late'crippl'd of an arm, and now a leg . 88 

Let not woman e'er complain 219 

Let other heroes boast their scars . . . 162 

Let other Poets raise a fracas .... 6 

Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize . . 109 

Light lay the earth on Billy's breast . . 160 

Like Esop's lion. Burns says, sore I feel . 150 
Lone on the bleaky hills the straying 

flocks 152 

Long life, my Lord, an' health be yours . 150 

Lord, to account who dares thee call . . 175 

Lord, we thank an' thee adore .... 165 

Loud blaw the' frosty breezes ..... 196 

Louis, what reck I by thee 208 

Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion . . 193 

Maxwell, if merit here you crave . . . 161 

Musing on the roaring ocean 197 

My blessings on ye, honest wife . . . 176 

My bottle is my holy pool ...... 166 

My Chloris, mark how green the groves . 218 

My curse upon thy venom'd stang . . . loi 
My Father was a Farmer upon the Carrick 

border O . . 238 

My Harry was a gallant gay . .... 251 

My heart is a breaking, dear Tittie . . 201 

My heart is sair, I dare na tell .... 208 

My heart is wae, and unco wae . . . . _. 278 
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is 

• not here - .. 212 

My heart was ance g^ blythe and free.- .. 258 

My honour'd Colonel; deep I feel . . . i5>.i 

My lord a-hunting he is gane. ^ . . . 246 

My Lord, 1 know your noble'ear ... g8 
My lov'd, my honor'd, mUch respected 

friend !..,.... ... 61 

1VIy love she's but a lassie yet 258 

My Peggy's face, my Peggy's form . .211 

Nae gentle dames, tho' e'er sae fair . . 210 

Nae heathen name shall I prefix . . . 140 
No churchman am I for to rail and to 

write 224 

No more of your guests, be they titled or 

not ■ .1T9 

No more, ye warblers of the wood — no 

more ! 118 

No sculptur'd marble here, nor pompous 

lay ... T23 

No song nor dance I bring from yon great 

' city 109 

No Stewart art thou, Galloway .... 169 

Now bank an' brae are claith'd in green . 214 

Now health forsakes that angel face . . i6r 
Now in her green mantle biythe Nature 

arrays , , 190 



Now Kennedy, if foot or horse . . . . 151 

Now nature deeds the flowery lea . . . 189 

Now Nature hangs her mantle green . . 85 

Now Robin lies in his last lair .... 124 

Now rosy May comes in wi' flowerp . . 228 

Now simmer blinks on flowery braes . . 196 

Now spring has clad the groves in green . 228 

Now- westlin winds and slaught'ring. guns 223 

O a' ye pious godly flocks . . , ,, , . 126* 

O bonie was yon rosy brier . . « . • 193 

' O cam ye here the fight to shun ... 230 

O can ye labour lea, young man . , ., 164 

O, could I give thee India's wealth _ , . 153 

O Death, hadst thou but spar'd his life . 167 

O Death ! thou tyrant fell and bloody ! » 83 
O'er the mist-shrouded cliffs of the lone 

mountain straying ........ 138 

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw . . , 199 
Of all the numerous ills that hurt 6ur 

peace 158 

O gie mylove brose, brose . . , . . 164 

O Goudie ! terror o' the. Whigs .... ,141 

O, had the malt thy strength of mind .» .» 119 

Oh ! had each Scot of ancient times . .. 172 

Oh ! I am come to the low countrie . . 260 

Oh, open the door, some pity to shew. . 181 

O how can I be blithe and glad . . . , 214 

O how shall I, unskilfu', try . . . . . 259 

O ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten 182 

O Kenmure's on and awa, Willie ! • •. -259 

O, Lady Mary Ann ........ 26d 

O Lassie, art thou sleeping yet?, . . » J91 

Old Winter v/ith his frosty beard . . . "liS 

O leave novels, ye Mauchline belles . . .242 

O leeze me on my spinnin wheel " . . . • 603 

O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide . . . t83 

O Lord, when hunger pinches sore . . . 175 
O luve will venture in, where it daur lia 

weel be seen 205 

O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet . . . 261 

O Mary, at thy window be 237 

O May, thy morn was ne'er sae_ sweet . 
O meikle thinks my luve o' my beauty . 
O merry hae I been tee thin' a heckle . , 
O mirk, mirk is this midnight hour . . . 
O, my luve 's like a red, red rose . . . 
On a bank of flowers,: in a summer day . 
On Cessnock banks a lassie dwells . . . 
Once fondly lov'd, and still remembet'd 

dear 

One night as I did wander ..... 242 

One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell . 167 

On peace and rest my mind was bent . . 247 

O, once I lov'd a bonie lass 232 

O Philly, happy be that day 219 

O poortith cauld, and restless love . . . 180 

Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care 60 

O raging fortune's withering blast . . . 240 

O rattlin', roarin' Willie 261 

O rough, rude, ready-witted Rankinc . . 8t 

Orthodox, orthodox 153 

Orthodox, Orthodox, wha believe in John 

Knox 99 

O sad and heavy should I part .... 262 

O saw yo bonie Lesley 839 



208 
202 
260 
i8i 
209 
240 
234 

140 



332 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES. 



O saw ye my dear, my Phely? . . . 

O $aw ye my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab? 

O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay 

O steer her up, and baud her gaun . . 

O that I had ne'er been married . . 

O Thou dread Pow'r, who reign' st above 

O Thou Great Being J what Thou art . 

O Thou, in whom we live and move . 

O thou pale Orb, that silent shines 

O Thou, the first, the greatest friend . 

O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause 

O Thou, wha in the Heavens dost dwell 

O thou ! whatever title suit thee . . 

O Thou, who kindly dost provide . . 

O thou whom Poetry abhors .... 

Our thrissles flourish'd fresh and fair . 

Out over the Forth I look to the north 

O, wat ye wha's in yon town 

O wat ye what my minnie did 

O, were I on Parnassus' hill ! 

O were my love yon lilac fair 

O, wert thou in the cauld blast 

O wha is she that lo'es me 

O wha my babie-clouts will buy 

O, whar did ye get that hauver meal 

bannock ? 

O whare live ye my bonie lass 

O wha will to Saint Stephen's house . 

O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad 

O <vhy the deuce should I repine . 

O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut 

O wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie 

Dunbar? ....... 

O ye wha are sae guid yoursel 

O ye, whose cheek the tear of pity stains 

Peg Nicholson was a gude bay mare . . 
Powers celestial, whose protection . . . 




J'age 

218 

276 
192 
262" 

277 

67 

68 

165 

59 

68 

66 

"30 

31 

123 

172 

253 

214 

209 

164 

200 

217 

210 
231 
213 

262 

274 
262 

185 
247 
200 

251 

174 

155 
235 



Ra.sh niortal, and slanderous poet, thy 

name 150 

Raving winds around her blowing . . . 197 

Revered defender of beauteous Stuart . 115 

Right, Sir ! your text I'll prove it true , 30 

Rusticity's ungainly form 175 

Sad thy tale, thou idle page 97 

Sae fair her hair, sac brent her brow . . 254 

Sae flaxen were her ringlets 188 

Say, Sages, what's the charm on earth . 156 

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled . . . 227 

Searching auld wives' barrels . . . . 170 

Sensibility, how charming 239 

She is a winsome, wee thing 180 

She's fair and fause that causes my smart 204 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot . . 226 

Shrewd Willie Smcllie to Crochallan came 116 

Sic a reptile was Wat 175 

Simmer's a pleasant time 263 

Sing on, sweet Thrush, upon the leafless 

bough 119 

Sir, as your mandate did request . . . 104 

Sir, o'er a gill I gat your card . . . . 133 
Sleep's! thou, or wak'st thou, fairest 

creature? 188 



Slow spreads the gloom my soul desires . 
So h^avy, passive to the tempests' shocks 
Some books are lies frae end to end 
Some hae r^eat, and canna eat ... 
Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway . 
Stay, my charmer, can you leave me? 
Still anxious to secure your partial favou; 
Strait is the spot and green the sod . . 
Streams that glide in orient plains . . 
Sweet closes the evening on Craigie-burn 

wood 

Sweetest May, let love inspire thee , 
Sweet fa's the eve on Craigie-burn . . 
Sweet flow'ret, pledge o' melkle love . 
Sweet naivete of feature ..... 

Talk .not to me of savages ■•- ... , . 
That there is falsehood in his looks 
The bairns gat out wi' an unco shout . 

The black-headed eagle 

The blude red rose at Yule may blavv . 
The boniest lad that e'er I saw . . . 
The Catrine woods were yellow seen , 

The cats like kitchen 

The cooper o' Cuddie cam here awa 
The day returns, my bosom burns . , 
The De'il cam fiddling thro' the town . 
The Devil got notice tliat Grose was a 

dying 

Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among 
The flower it blaws, it fades, it fa's. . 
The friend whom wild from wisdom's way 
The gloomy night is gath'ring fast . . 
The graybeard. Old Wisdom, may boas 

of his treasures 

The heather was blooming, the meadow 

were mawn 

Their groves o' sweet myrtles let foreign 

lands reckon 

The King's most humble servant I . 
The laddies by the banks o' Niih . 
The lamp of day, with ill-presaging glare 
The last braw bridal that I was at . . 
The lazy mist hangs from the brow of thi 

hill 

The lovely lass o' Inverne.ss .... 
The man, in life wherever plac'd . . 
The night was still, and o'er the hill . 
The noble Maxwells and their powers 
The ploughman he's a bonie lad . . 
The poor man weeps — here Gavin sleep 
There came" a piper out o' Fife . . . 
There liv'd a lass in yonder dale . . 
There lived a carle on Kellyburn braes 
There's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon 

glen 

There's a youth in this city, it were a 

great pity • 

There's braw braw lads on Yarrow braes 
There's death in the cup — sae beware ! 
There's naethin like the honest nappy ! 
There's news, lasses, news .... 
There's nought but care on ev'ry han' 
There was a bonie lass, and a bonie, bonie 

lass . 

There was a lad was bom in Kyle ... 



250 
•236 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES. 



33i 



There was a lass, and she was fair . . . 184 
There was a lass, they ca'd her Meg . . 267 
There was a wife wonn'd in Cockpen . . . 277 
There was once a day, but old Time then 

was young 229 

There were five Carlins in the south . . , 248 
There were three Kings into the east . . 220 
The simple Bard, rough at the rustic 

plough . 24 

The small birds rejoice in the green leaves 

returning 243 

The smiling spring comes in rejoicing . 208 
The Solemn League and Covenant . . 155 
The sun had clos'd the winter day ... 38 
The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles 

an' a' 265 

The Thames flows proudly to the sea . . 203 

The tither morn 265 

The weary pund, the weary pund . . .268 
The wind blew hollov/ frae the hills . . 89 
The winter it is past, and the simmer 

comes at last 243 

The wintry west extends his blast ... 61 
They snool me sair, and baud -me 4own . 203 
Thickest night, o'erhang my dwelling ! . 197 
Thind am I, my faithful fair . . . . . 186 
Thir.t, be the volumes, Jessy fair ... 118 
This Day Time winds th' exhausted chain 116 
This wot ye all v/hom it concerns . . . iii 
Tho* cruel fate should bid us part .. . . 211 
Thou flattering mark of friendship kind . 156 
Though fickle Fortune has deceiv'd me . 159 
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie . . . 218 
Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray . 241 
Thou of an independent mind , . . . 117 
Thou's welcome, wean ! mishanter fa' me 140 
Thou whom chance may hither lead . . 82 
TTiou, who thy honour as thy God 

rever'st 90 

Tho' women's minds like winter winds . 241 
Through and through the inspired leaves 157 
'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair 

friend . ^ . . . 174 

To Riddel, much-lamented man-. . . . 157 
To thee, lov'd Nith, thy gladsome plains 247 
To you. Sir, this summons I've sent . . 280 
True hearted was he, the sad swain 0' the 

Yarrow . 182 

Turn again, thou fair Eliza 204 

'Twas even — the dewy fields were green 178 
'Twas in that place o' Scotland's isle . . i 
Twas in the seventeen hunder year . . 272 
.'Twas naher bonie blue ee was my ruin . 192 
'Twas where the birch and sounding thong 
are pl/d , • ^35 

Upon a simmer Sunday mom .... 14 
Upon that-*iight, when Fairies light . . 44 
Up wi' the carles of Dysart 268 

Wae is my heart, r\nd the tear's in my ee 275 

Wae worth thy power, thou cursed leaf! . 158 

Weary fa' you, Duncan Gray .... 269 

We came na here to view your warks . . 168 

Wee» modest. crimson-tipp6d flow'r . . 691 



Page 
^yee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie . 54 
Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet . 257 
Wha is that at my bower door? , . ; . 214 
Whan I sleep I dream ....... 274 

Whare hae ye been sae braw, lad ? . . . 269 
What ails ye now, ye lousie bitch . . . 165 
What can a young lassie, what shall a 

young lassie .' . 202 

What dost thou in that mansion fair ? . . ' 169 
What needs this din about the town o' 

Lon'on. .1 136 

What of earls with whom you have supt . 159 
What will I do gin my Hoggie die ? . . 269 

Wha will buy my troggin 271' 

When biting Boreas, fell and doure . . 55 
When by a generous public's kind acclaim 161 
When chapman billies leave the street . 91 
When chill November's surly blasti. . . 65 
When death's dark stream I ferry o'er . 123 

When , deceased, to the devil v/ent 

down 176 

When first I. came to Stewart Kyle . . 239 
When first I.saw fair Jeanie's face . . . 278 
When first my brave Johnnie lad . . . 269 
When Guilford good our Pilot stood . .221 
When I think on the happy days . . . 274 
When Januar' wind was blawing cauld . 249 
When lyart leaves bestrew the yird . . 48 
When Nature her great master-piece 

design'd 86 

When o'er the hill the eastern star . . . 179 

When the drums do beat 259 

When wild war's deadly blast, was blawn 237 
Where are the joys I have met in the 

morning ■ 217 

Where, braving angry winter's storms . 198 
Where Cart finsrowin to the sea . ... 227 
While at the stook the shearers cowr . . 128 
While' briers an' woodbines budding 

.ereen . 75 

While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty 

things HI 

While larks with little \ving 184 

While new-ca'd kye rowte at the stake . 77 
While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood . . 97 
While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw . 57 
Whoe'er he be that sojourns here . . . 168 
Whoe'er thou art, O reader, know . . . 173 
Whom will you send to London town . . 269 
Whose is that noble, dauntless brow ? . 134 
Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene ? 67 
V^'^hy, why tell thy lover ...... 229 

Why, ye tenants of the lake ..... 132 

Wi' braw new branks in mickic pride . . 157 
Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed . . . . 107 

Will ye goto the Indies, my Mary. . . 236 

Wilt thou be my dearie ? i86 

With Pegasus upon a day . . ' . . . . 158 
Wow, but your letter made me vauntie ! . 108 



Ye banks, and braes, and streams arou./d 226 

Yc banks and braes o' bonie Doon . . . 206 

Ye flowery banks o' bonie Doon .... 206 

Ye gallants bright, I red you right ... 211 

Ye hae lien a' wran^, lassie 164 



334 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES. 



Page 

Ye Irish Lords, ye Knights an' Squires . 9 
Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear, give 

an ear 273 

Ye maggots feast on Nicol's brain . . . 165 
Ye men of wit and v/ealth, why all this 

sneering 171 

Ye sons of old KIHie, assembled by Willie 273 

Ye sons of sedition, give ear to my song . 15S 

Yestreen I had a pint o' wine . ..... 215 

Yestreen I met you on the moor . . . igg 
Ye true 'Loyal Natives,' attend to my 

song . 158 



Yon wand'rlng rill, that marks the hill . 
Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and 

wide 

Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain . . . 
Young Jockey was the blithest lad . . . 
Young Peggy blooms our bonniest lass . 
Your billet, sir, I grant receipt .... 
Your News and Review, Sir, I've read 

through and through,' Sir 

You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier . 
You're welcome, Willie Stewart. . . . 
Yours this moment I unseal 



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246 

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